No Statute of Limitations on Malevolence
by MoreBonesPlz
Summary: When B&B quit their jobs, they thought they'd left the year of pain & loss behind them. But, when they return to their crime solving careers, they learn not everything was as resolved as they thought. There are loose ends from the case that got Booth jailed & almost killed. This time, as they work to track down yet another killer, they might just learn more than they expected. S11.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** _FaithinBones encouraged me to try my hand at a case fic. Here goes._

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 **Disclaimer** : I own nothing _Bones_ related except my imagination.

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*** PROLOGUE ***

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 _. . . three more arrests were made today in what is turning out to be one of the largest and most intricate corruption rings ever uncovered. As you'll recall, it all started about a month ago with the arrest of Dr. Glen Durant, stepson of Desmond Wilson who was a close personal aide back in the 1960's to J. Edgar Hoover. It's no secret that Hoover maintained extensive files on all sorts of people during his time at the FBI, but we're just learning that Wilson used that information to blackmail and manipulate an extensive network of people, including politicians, lawyers and judges, doctors, FBI and Secret Service agents, and a whole host of others. Wilson eventually turned over the control of the information he'd gathered to his stepson, Durant, who continued the practice of illegally gathering information and using it to coerce other individuals to perform acts on his behalf, often outside the limits of the law. Today's arrests bring the count up to eight people so far that have been arrested and charged with various crimes as part of what the media are labelling Durant's Web and we don't think this is the end of it yet. Unofficial reports are hinting that we may just be seeing the tip of the iceberg. We're waiting on the steps outside the United States Department of Justice building for a press conference with the Deputy Attorney General that should start in about ten more minutes . . ._

The late afternoon news broadcast was being watched intently by a man sitting alone at the end of an uncrowded bar in a local DC neighborhood. It was a nondescript bar – certainly not a high end place where people went just to be seen, but neither was it a rundown, seedy establishment where chances were good most the patrons had served at least some amount of time in lock-up. It was just an average bar at an average grill in an average neighborhood.

The man had been following the news story ever since it broke a few weeks earlier. In his opinion, Glen Durant was a sniveling little weasel and a weak fucking idiot and he was surprised it had actually taken this long for someone to catch on to what he'd been doing and bring him down. Not that others hadn't tried, of course, but Durant's influence had been wide and they'd invariably ended up snagged in his elaborate web, dancing to his tune and performing tricks for him.

Until now.

The man chuckled silently to himself without any real humor. _Sayonara, asshole._

When the story of Durant's arrest first broke, it got minimal media coverage and the man almost missed it entirely. Durant was a nobody in the eyes of the media and they didn't yet realize what they had stumbled into. Very few people paid attention to those early broadcasts about how Durant had been caught.

But the man did.

He knew what would follow.

He understood the implications and the immediate need to distance himself.

As such, the man made it a point to discover who had finally had the intelligence and moral fortitude to overcome Durant's elaborate snares. After all, given the illegalities in his own personal history, it was always worthwhile to know about the law enforcement personnel that were on top of their game. To encounter someone impervious to blackmail, extortion, or bribery was a lot rarer than most folks would expect or Durant wouldn't have lasted as long as he did.

His research led him to FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth and his partner, Dr. Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian Institute. The man had only just begun to study them and had already discovered several interesting nuggets. She was a scientist and a crime series novelist, famous in both careers. He was an ex-Army Ranger with a history of gambling. She was beautiful and spoke several different languages. He'd recently spent several months in a federal penitentiary awaiting trial in the murder of some fellow agents until the case was suddenly dropped. Her best friend was an exotic looking brunette from work. His best friend was killed by one of Durant's minions just a few weeks earlier. Together, they'd been working on murder investigations for roughly ten years and had a staggeringly impressive success rate at finding their culprit plus providing the DA with sufficient evidence to convict.

What the man found most interesting though, and to his unexpected delight, was that Dr. Temperance Brennan was his old friend Max Keenan's daughter and Seeley Booth, her husband.

Max Keenan. That wily old son-of-a-bitch. His was a name the man would've been happy to forget.

The man knew the role he'd played in the corruption network, Durant's Web, over the years and he wasn't about to let himself be buried in the fall out from Durant's arrest. He wasn't someone Durant had ever had under his control, but the man and Durant had done business together regularly. There were any number of times when Durant had turned to him when he needed some muscle, the type that didn't get squeamish easily and wasn't morally inclined to say 'no' to much, and Durant had always been reliable about paying the man's fees. Those fees weren't cheap, either.

However, the man had been successfully evading the law for almost forty years now. He knew what he needed to do to keep evading it. All it required was a little strategic house cleaning, making sure any potential trails back to him got erased before they were discovered.

With a final swallow of his whiskey sour, he slammed his glass back down on the bar top. He tucked a five dollar tip under the glass and got up to leave the bar. He had work to do covering his tracks and might as well get started. Plus, he wanted to learn more about Seeley Booth and Temperance Brennan. They weren't adversaries right now, but he sensed they could be dangerous, and he always made it a point to learn about potential dangers. After all, she was Max's daughter and he and Max had a history together that wasn't exactly all roses.

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 **A/N:** _Just a quick tease in honor of Bones-day. I'll post the first full chapter on Saturday. Interested?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer** : I own nothing _Bones_ related except my imagination. (11/7/15)

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 _Roughly one year later . . ._

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"Bones, have you seen my FBI badge?" Booth hollered from their bedroom. "I swear, I left it on top of the dresser in our room, just like I always do, but it's not there."

Brennan walked into their room to find her husband crouched down on his hands and knees, trying to look under the dresser in case his badge had somehow fallen and bounced beneath the piece of furniture. The sight of his dark grey dress pants pulled taught over his firm buttocks that were sticking up in the air towards her was just too tempting to pass up. Stepping up beside him, she reached down and smacked him once on the ass with the flat of her hand – hard enough to sting just a little, but not so hard that it actually hurt, followed by a quick caress.

"Whoa," Booth yelped in surprise, quickly straightening up so that he was fully upright, although still on his knees, an almost comical look of disbelief on his face before he narrowed his eyes and gave his wife a look of suspicion. "What was _that_ for?"

Brennan just chuckled and gave him a wink with a flirty smile. "You can either consider it payback for what you did to me last weekend, or you can consider it a prelude to the next time Christine stays with Max. Either one."

Booth stood up on his feet and grabbing her by the hips, pulled her flush against his body before sliding his hands around to affectionately cup her derriere and pull her even closer. "I don't recall hearing any complaints last weekend. Sure, you may have uttered the word _stop_ a few dozen times, but if memory serves correctly, it was always preceded most insistently by the word _don't_."

"Context is important," she agreed. Grabbing him just below the knot of his tie, she leaned up on her tiptoes and brushed a soft, promising kiss across his lips before pulling out of his arms and heading towards the door. "Oh, and I'm still not complaining, Booth. Just reminding you that roundabout is fair play. Come. I have an idea where your badge may be."

"Turnabout, Bones. The phrase is turnabout is fair play," he corrected with a smile, never quite sure anymore when she deliberately messed a colloquial phrase up just to get a reaction from him. The woman certainly knew how to keep him on his toes.

Brennan walked across the hall to her son Hank's room with Booth trailing behind her and admiring the view. Looking through the doorway, she could see her five year old daughter, Christine, standing beside Hank's crib wearing her lemony yellow trench coat, a charcoal grey fedora of Booth's that she must have taken from their closet, and a pair of Brennan's sunglasses. Her pink pajama pants poked out the bottom of the trench coat and her feet with their sparkly-painted toe nails were bare. In one hand, she was holding a bright purple plastic water pistol that she had received as a party favor from Billy McAlister's birthday party a few weeks earlier and in the other hand, she was holding Booth's badge.

"OK, Mr. Booth," Christine said to her baby brother in a deeper than normal voice with a mock frown on her face. "If you're not going to talk and tell me who's been stealing all the red crayons from the neighborhood kids, then you're just going to have to stay there in jail."

Hank gurgled and kicked his legs, excited to have his big sister nearby.

"No, no. I don't want to hear any excuses. Crayon stealing is a serious crime, and we need to find out who's responsible and bring them to justice."

"Christine, honey," Brennan interrupted her daughter's one-sided interrogation of her brother. "Daddy needs his badge back now to finish getting ready for work."

Christine skipped over to where her mother stood in the doorway and handed her the badge. "OK Mommy. Hank and I were just playing FBI. I'm the FBI agent and he's the bad guy."

"Yes, well, that's very nice of you to include your brother in your games, but what've we told you before about taking Mommy's or Daddy's things without asking for permission first, hmm?" She plucked Booth's fedora off Christine's head and tried to appear stern. If her daughter actually knew how tickled Brennan was feeling right then . . . Brennan was certain she'd lose all semblance of parental control.

"But I was just sharing them. Sharing's a good thing. You said so and you're always right."

"I am always right and sharing is a good thing, but so is asking permission first. Now, go and get dressed for school. We've got to leave soon."

As Christine ran off to her own room, Brennan turned around to hand Booth his badge and his hat. His eyes were dancing with barely restrained laughter and his grin pulled an answering one from Brennan's lips. "Here's your badge and your hat back."

"She still has your sunglasses."

"Yes, I know, but I have several others. Somehow my sunglasses seem to have a habit of ending up with other people."

They walked back into their bedroom right as Booth's phone started to ring. Tucking his badge in his pants waist and placing the hat on the dresser, Booth grabbed his phone from where it was charging on his nightstand. "Booth . . . oh, okay . . . right . . . yeah, I'll let her know . . . text me the address and we should be there in about an hour."

Booth hung up the phone and looked at his wife. "We've got a body and they're asking for you."

* * *

The address that was sent to Booth took them to a neighborhood in Washington DC called Shepherd Park and a street that bordered Rock Creek Park, which was maintained by the US National Park Service. Rock Creek Park was probably the most popular park in all of Washington DC once you excluded the areas associated with the National Monuments. In addition to the miles of hiking, biking, and even horseback riding trails that wound through the park, there were tennis courts, a planetarium, several playgrounds, and even a golf course. Joggers, bicyclers, and mom's with baby strollers could be found all over the trails at almost any time of the day when the park was open which meant that for a body dump to go unnoticed, it most likely occurred at night.

As soon as Booth stopped his SUV at the side of the road, Brennan hopped out, grabbed her gear from the back of the truck, and made a bee-line to the area that had been cordoned off with crime scene tape where she presumed the body would be located.

Booth, on the other hand, was hailed by Officer Landry, who was standing at the edge of all the action talking to two young boys that looked to be about eleven years old and waving to get his attention. Booth and Landry had crossed paths before on other cases and Booth found him to be a decent guy. Young, intelligent, hard-working. The DC police force could use a few more like him.

"Morning, Officer Landry. What's up?"

"Morning, Agent Booth. I wanted you to get a chance to meet Joey and Rick here. They're the ones who found the body this morning."

Booth looked down at the two boys standing in front of him wearing knee length shorts, t-shirts, and shoes that looked too big for their feet. They were several years younger than Parker, but they were about the same age Parker had been when he moved to England and even though Booth still got to see Parker a couple times a year, he still thought of him as that little boy. These boys were carrying backpacks, like they'd been on their way to school before they'd stumbled into whatever it is they'd found.

"Morning, boys. My name is Special Agent Seeley Booth with the FBI. Are either of your parents around?"

Both boys shook their heads in the negative, both looking somewhat awed at Booth, staring at him with unguarded fascination. "They've already gone to work for the day," Joey added.

"I have informed them that they're free to leave at any time and head to school if they want and that they don't have to answer any questions if they'd rather wait for a parent to be present, but they've both indicated they were willing to stick around and tell you what they know," Landry explained.

"All-righty. So you boys understand we're allowed to ask you questions even without an adult present, but you're not being officially detained and you're free to leave at any point or ask for an adult if you want one, right?"

Both boys nodded their heads, eyes wide as they looked up at Booth. There was an instinctive recognition by the boys that this was not a man to be trifled with. He was big. He was powerful. And he exuded an aura of cool competence and authority that might've been overly intimidating to the youths if it wasn't for the laughter lines in the corners of his eyes that softened his expression and the look of friendly admiration Office Landry had shot Booth's way as he approached.

"Why'd they call in the FBI?" Joey asked.

Booth figured it wouldn't hurt to answer the kids' questions, at least not the general ones. Letting them initiate some dialogue would make them feel a little more in control, relaxed. Booth knew that meant they'd be more comfortable then when he started asking the questions. "Well, the person you discovered is inside the Park. Since the Park is part of the National Forest Service, it's Federal land and that means that crimes that occur there fall to the FBI to help investigate."

Joey looked over towards where Brennan was now squatting next to the body. "Is the lady who came with you your FBI partner?"

Booth couldn't prevent his eyes from seeking out his wife at Joey's reference to her and was unaware of how his look softened just a bit as he glanced her way. "She's my partner, yeah, but she's not with the FBI. She's an anthropologist with the Jeffersonian Institute and she'll be the one to help us figure out who exactly it is that you two found there in the woods."

"She's real pretty," Rick murmured quietly.

"Yeah, she is. Real smart too." Booth decided it was time to take charge of the discussion when he caught Office Landry trying to hold in a smirk. "So, what made you decide to go into the woods this morning and dig a hole?"

"We needed to bury our treasure chest," Rick responded, looking down at his feet and kicking a clump of grass with his toe.

"Your treasure?"

Joey was the next to pipe up while pointing to an elaborately painted cardboard box, a little bigger than a shoe box, that was sitting off to the side. "Yeah. Over there. I'm having a sleepover at my house on Saturday and we're gonna play D&D."

"D&D? You mean Dungeons and Dragons?" Booth looked at Landry. "I didn't know anyone still played board games anymore."

"It's gone digital, Agent Booth. I imagine they'll be playing an electronic version, not the same version you probably knew as a kid," Landry clarified.

"Yeah. We'll have the basement set up so we can all be online together playing at the same time. My mom says we'll have to take a break every now and then though, so Rick and I were planning something sorta like a scavenger hunt with maps and clues to give the fellas for fun. The treasure chest is supposed to be like the grand finale, so we wanted to bury it."

"What's in the box?"

"My mom bought some candy, some trading cards, and some of those snapper fire cracker things for us all to share."

"What are snapper fire crackers?"

"You know, the kind where they wrap some sort of gunpowder or something like that in small little paper balls with a tail so they look kinda like a tadpole and you throw them at the ground to make a popping-bang noise."

"Ah, right. Got it. Where do you live, Joey?"

"Right there," he answered, pointing to a house almost directly across the street from where all the police and FBI vehicles were parked.

"OK. So, what made you decide that was the best place to bury your treasure?"

"Why does that matter? We weren't expecting to find a dead guy."

"Well, someone else obviously dug a hole in the same location sometime before you did. I was just curious what it is about that spot that made it look good to you. Maybe whoever dug the first hole liked that spot for the same reason."

"Oh. Well, we both agreed we wanted to bury the treasure in the woods, but Rick picked the actual spot."

Rick was the quieter of the two boys. Booth couldn't tell if he was simply shy, or whether he was feeling intimidated, but recognized that either way, he needed a little gentle prodding. "Rick? Anything to add?"

"I dunno. I, uh, I guess it's just that when you stand here on the street and look at the woods, the trees don't seem quite as close together right there. I figured maybe we'd have an easier time avoiding roots as we dug if the trees were further apart, you know?"

Booth was impressed with the boy's logic. "Makes sense to me. That was pretty smart of you."

"Thanks," Rick mumbled, a slight flush of embarrassment coloring his cheeks.

"So, was it easy to dig there?"

"Mostly. We didn't hit any rocks or sticks while we were digging. Just the body. But the dirt was still, I dunno, packed kinda tight I guess you'd say."

"Either of you ever recall seeing anyone else poking around in the woods right there?"

Both boys chorused "no" in unison.

"Well, I'm sure this seems way cooler than sitting in a classroom, but I think that's all I need from you for now. Officer Landry here is going to take you to your school and make sure you get checked in okay with the attendance office. You need to give him your addresses and phone numbers if you haven't done so already. He'll also want to get your parent's names and numbers at work so he can simply notify them that we spoke to you and answer their questions if they have any so they don't get upset with you two." Booth handed each of the boys a copy of his business card. "You boys give me a call if anything else comes to mind that you think I should know about, even if you're not sure whether or not it's important, okay?"

Both boys agreed, then followed Officer Landry to his squad car. Booth could hear them peppering the police officer with questions about his job, his car, and his gun as they wandered off and he turned around, scanning the scene for his wife.

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 **A/N:** _Planning to try and post this story on Thursdays and weekends. Since it's a case fic with a somewhat convoluted story line, I want to post regularly so the story stays fresh in everyone's mind. Comments are always welcome._


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer** : I own nothing _Bones_ related except my imagination. (11/12/15)

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Brennan spent several hours of the morning overseeing the excavation at the site. The body had only been partially uncovered from its blanket of soil when she and Booth arrived at the scene so she assisted with the process of digging up the rest of the corpse, lending her expertise and eagle eye to the team to ensure no evidence was compromised. By the time she authorized the FBI field techs to remove the remains and transport the body back to the Jeffersonian, it was almost lunch time and Brennan and Booth stopped off at the diner together for a bite to eat before returning to their respective offices.

She arrived back at the lab just as the remains were being delivered and directed Wendell Bray, her intern of the week, to prepare the remains for an initial examination on the platform while she headed to her office for a bit.

A short while later, Wendell stood in her doorway and cleared his throat to get her attention. "Uh, Dr. Brennan. The remains are ready for you whenever you want to start."

"Excellent, Mr. Bray." Brennan stood up from her desk and pulled on her blue Jeffersonian lab coat before marching out the door, leaving Wendell to follow in her tracks.

"Have you notified Dr. Saroyan and Dr. Hodgins?" Before approaching the body, she grabbed a hair tie from her coat pocket and quickly bound her hair up in a ponytail.

"Dr. Saroyan is currently tied up in an administrative meeting, but I sent her both an email and a short text. Hodgins is finishing up some analysis on another matter in his office but said he'd join us shortly."

Brennan nodded her head in acknowledgement. Wendell was a reliable intern and had been working with her for several years now, so she'd have been surprised if he'd displayed anything other than complete competence. "So tell me, Mr. Bray . . . what do you see?"

Wendell took a deep breath, recognizing from her tone that she had fallen into her mentoring mode. One of the things he loved about working under Dr. Brennan is that she never lost sight of the fact that the Jeffersonian was a teaching institution in addition to a scientific laboratory and she had a way of inspiring her students to step out of their comfort zone and push their abilities. She would question, encourage, and guide them to what she wanted them to ascertain in a manner that still allowed them to own their discoveries. It was extremely rewarding, but it could also be as intimidating as hell and, like always, Wendell's heart rate accelerated with nervous excitement over the prospect of the teacher quizzing the student. He knew he'd calm down, once they got into the flow of discussion, but the first couple minutes as the recipient of her focused attention always gave him a little jolt of stage fright.

"The victim appears to be a male based on the prominent brow ridge. The, uh, the square-like shape of the nasal cavity indicates he is of Negroid descent and the extent of fusion in the coronal suture . . . here . . . is consistent with someone in their mid-thirties to early-forties. Once the bones are cleaned, we can also examine the condition of the pubic symphysis to corroborate that."

"Very good, Mr. Bray. What else?"

"There appears to be a distinct bullet hole to the center of the parietal bone which is most likely the cause of death." Wendell pointed to a location high on the back of the skull.

"Yes. Assuming he was alive when he was shot, which is a statistical likelihood, then a bullet shot into the brain at that location could be expected to result in death. The bullet is probably still lodged within the skull, so we will have to see if we can recover it later so Cam can run ballistics. Anything else?"

Wendell examined the body for several more minutes while Brennan watched and waited patiently. He felt the pressure of her eyes on him making him start to sweat even though she wasn't rushing him in any way. "Umm, there's not a ton of flesh left on the bones, but what's here makes it difficult to really see much of the skeleton. I'm not seeing anything else obvious right now."

"Then, in Cam's absence and despite how much I dislike dealing with it, talk to me about the flesh. What do you observe relative to what you've seen on other cadavers?" Her tone was soothing, encouraging and Wendell looked harder.

"It seems . . . I dunno, dry?"

"Elaborate, please."

"Well, there's nothing really left of the organs in the abdominal cavity, but most of the muscles are still fairly intact and attached to the skeletal system. They're kinda leathery though, like a mummy's." Wendell glanced over at Brennan to see her response to his description.

"Yes. Very good Mr. Bray. The body has exsanguinated which means all the blood has drained away, leaving the dehydrated flesh behind. How long would you estimate he's been deceased?"

Wendell ran his eyes back and forth along the corpse and shook his head. "Honestly, Dr. Brennan? I have no idea. Anything I posited at this point would be a pure guess."

"The body was buried a little over 30 centimeters below the surface which retarded the rate of decomposition of the flesh making it difficult to provide a very accurate estimate of time of death. A body left above ground will decompose down to the skeletal structure in approximately one month, give or take, pending environmental factors like temperature, humidity and the prevalence of predators. Since the bacteria which decompose flesh need oxygen to thrive, burying a body, even in a relatively shallow grave, will decrease the quantity of bacteria that can be sustained and slow down the breakdown of the soft tissue. A body buried six feet down in a good quality casket can take decades to decompose. Because our bodies naturally house a highly concentrated variety of bacteria in our stomach and intestinal tracts, once deceased, those are generally the first organs to breakdown. Based on the level of decomposition we see here in conjunction with observations I made at the site with respect to moisture content of the soil and depth of burial, I would estimate this individual was buried between eight to fourteen months ago."

Wendell nodded his head and pointed to a nearby tray containing several small jars. "I see you brought back some soil samples from the site. I assume that once Hodgins is free to assist us, he can evaluate the soil samples you collected to verify the type and concentration of bacteria present as well as provide a more accurate moisture content analysis. Then, we should be able to use that information to refine the estimated time of death, correct?"

"Absolutely, Mr. Bray. Tell me, do you see any defensive wounds in the flesh?"

Wendell examined the hand and arm on the side of the body closest to him, then moved to examine those on the other side of the body. "No. No, I'm sorry Dr. Brennan. But, I'm not seeing it. I just can't detect the typical bruising or lacerations that we associate with defensive wounds."

Brennan smiled reassuringly. "That's okay, Mr. Bray. I didn't spot any either. We'll obviously want to take another, closer look once the bones are clean, but sometimes our observations about what we don't see can be just as informative as those we make about what we do see."

"Meaning the victim didn't fight back, so most likely he either knew his assailant and let him get close or he was taken completely by surprise."

"Yes, exactly. There's not much more we can do with these remains until Dr. Saroyan and Dr. Hodgins have an opportunity to collect the samples they need. Go ahead and take the remains to be X-rayed and let me know when that's done. I'm going to let Angela know she can get started on her facial reconstruction, then, I'll be in my office."

* * *

"Sweetie? The victim's name is Deon Mosley," Angela announced about two hours later, standing in the doorway to Brennan's office.

"Oh." Brennan looked up from the file she'd been working on. "That was quick work, Ange. Good job. How did you make the identification?"

Angela wandered the rest of the way into Brennan's office and sat down across from her friend, crossing her long legs.

"When Cam returned from her meeting, she was able to pull a finger print off the victim's hand and we ran it through our data bases and got a hit. Deon Mosley showed up as an agent for the Secret Service who was reported missing last November by his supervisor."

Hodgins popped his head in the door. "The timing makes sense. Cam looked at a sample of his muscle tissue under magnification. A small percentage of the cells appeared to have ruptured in a manner that you would associate with freezing. It would've had to occur before all of the blood drained away and the tissue dried out, but not immediately after burial or the quantity of ruptured cells likely would've been greater. So, probably within two-to-four weeks after his being buried."

Angela gave her husband a look of disgusted fascination – one he received from her with predictable regularity around this place. "But he was buried. Wouldn't the dirt have insulated him from freezing?"

"Not dirt. Soil," Hodgins corrected automatically. "And it depends on the depth he was buried. In the Washington DC-Maryland-Northern Virginia area, the frost depth as defined by the construction building codes is generally 30-inches. That's the minimum depth contractors are supposed to bury below grade utilities to avoid problems with freeze-thaw damage in the winter. Since our victim was only buried around 12 inches down, it's not unlikely that he would have experienced at least a partial freeze of some of his tissue during a harsh cold snap or an extended period of below freezing temperatures."

"That would narrow the window for estimated time of death to somewhere between 11 and 12 months ago," Brennan reasoned.

"Yeah," Hodgins agreed. "That seems to be consistent with what the rest of our analysis is telling us and when he was reported missing. He likely died at or near the date he disappeared."

"Did you discover anything else about Mr. Mosley, Ange?"

"Yeah. He lived in Bethesda, drove a 2012 metallic blue Cadillac CTS sedan which was in his driveway at his condo when he went missing, and he's been divorced for 3 years. The really interesting part though? His missing persons file was flagged as being a person of interest to the DA's office. Cam's getting in touch with Caroline Julian right now to let her know we found him."

Almost in perfect synchronicity with those last words leaving Angela's mouth, Cam came striding into Brennan's office bearing a serious, albeit somewhat annoyed, demeanor. "Dr. Brennan. Apparently, it's our lucky day. You and I have been summoned to meet with Caroline and Booth over at the FBI offices. Grab your coat and let's go."

Brennan stood up to grab her jacket, wondering silently why Cam thought a summons from Caroline made them lucky.

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 **A/N:** _Comments?_


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer** : I own nothing _Bones_ related except my imagination. (11/14/15)

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When Brennan and Cam arrived at the FBI headquarters building, they were told that Booth and Caroline were already in one of the conference rooms, waiting for them, and directed where to go. As she entered the conference room, Brennan's eyes immediately sought out her husband's and found his already trained on her. As she maneuvered herself around the conference table to sit beside him, they had a quick but silent conversation accomplished purely through visual interaction and facial expression.

A single eyebrow of Brennan's quirked up as her gaze locked on Booth's. _What's going on? Why were we summoned here?_

Booth raised both brows and tilted his head slightly in Caroline's direction with a little shake. _I don't know. She hasn't said anything to me yet._

Brennan's brows snapped together in a frown, small wrinkles forming on her forehead. _This is unusual and I don't like when things are unusual._

Booth's eyes softened and he reached for her hand as she sat down, wrapping his warm and solid fingers around hers and giving a gentle squeeze. _I know._

Caroline leaned forward on her elbows and glowered at Booth and Brennan, her jowls practically quivering with her crankiness. "I _thought_ that when you two finally came back from your early retirement, that things around here would start going more smoothly again. Don't know why the hell I thought that. You'd think that at my age, I'd know better than to entertain such ridiculous delusions. It's not like things around here were ever smooth or easy before you two left to try and play house like normal people anyway."

Cam, Booth, and Brennan just looked at each other, then back at Caroline, not knowing what to say.

Caroline huffed (it had too much energy behind it to be considered a sigh) and relaxed back in her chair. "You do make beautiful babies though, Cher, I'll give you that." She shook her head ruefully.

"What's this all about, Caroline?" Booth asked, trying not to sound impatient with the persnickety prosecutor.

Caroline studied them silently for a moment longer while she tried to decide where to begin before electing to just jump in with both feet, so to speak. No need to sugar coat things with this particular group. "Durant's Web." The way she spoke the words, they almost sounded like an apology.

While Booth and Brennan both seemed to sit up a little straighter and sharpen their focus on the crotchety old attorney, Cam was the first to respond. "As in, Glen Durant? The doctor who was behind the whole blackmail and coercion ring we brought down a little more than a year ago?"

"That's right. There was a whole lot of action and reaction that happened with that case once you so graciously dumped it in my lap followed by a whole lot of nothin' for about the last nine months."

Brennan was confused. "I'm not sure what that means."

"It means you may've just stirred up a hornet's nest with the discovery of your Mr. Mosley, Cherie and I haven't decided yet whether to kiss you or curse you."

Brennan's eyebrows shot up. "I don't believe in curses."

"Hmmph. I know, which unfortunately takes all the fun out of conjuring one," Caroline grumbled before getting back on point. "The files that you all found hidden in Hoover's replica office at the Jeffersonian last year provided a whole lot of information for my office to sift through. We had folks working day and night for a couple months just trying to understand exactly what we had. In a nutshell, those files were a road map to Durant's elaborate network of victims turned accomplices, what the media dubbed Durant's Web. It provided information not only about who he blackmailed and how, but what they did under his direction. All total, we charged 27 different no-good people with crimes ranging from illegal eavesdropping and money laundering to murder and corporate espionage. Then, all of a sudden, we started showing up on people's doorsteps to serve warrants or make arrests, and they'd be missing. Poof – they were gone. Fifteen different people conveniently not at home and our investigation just kinda withered on the vine. Your Mr. Deon Mosley, formerly of the United States Secret Service, was one of those fifteen."

"Oh, I see." Booth thought he understood where she was going with this. "You think that Durant somehow orchestrated a hit from prison and that there may be more bodies in the woods near where we found Mosley's remains. I'll send a team out there with Tutti, the cadaver dog, to see if they can find any other burial sites. But why would Durant do that? He's already going down for the rest of his life and then some, so what did he have to gain?"

"Close, Cher, but no cigar. At roughly the same time that our fifteen suspects went walkabout, Durant was murdered in a knife fight in prison. I don't think Durant was responsible for killing Mosley or any of the other disappearances."

"You think it was a hit?" Cam asked.

"At first, we didn't. No. It seemed like he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time when a typical jail fight broke out. But we got suspicious when other suspects involved in the investigation started disappearing. Then we discovered that the sister of the man who knifed Durant was suddenly driving a brand new BMW she couldn't explain how she paid for and started to reconsider. We think two of the missing fifteen suspects skipped the country and are living the high life in South America now based on certain intelligence we've received. Of the remaining thirteen, nine are confirmed deceased, including Mosley. All murdered. All shot to the back of the head. The remaining four are still unaccounted for."

"Were they all buried, like Mosley?" Cam wondered.

"No. He's the first, which presumable means our bad guy didn't want him found for some reason."

Brennan was incredulous and bristled with indignation. "Why weren't we made aware of any of this before now?"

Caroline snorted. "Really, Cherie? What with Sweet's dying, may he rest in peace, and Booth still recovering from his vacation in prison, you two were too close to the case to remain objective. Besides, once you started waddling around denying you were pregnant and Booth started sneaking off to gamble, you two were a mess. Last year was not your finest hour. Also, at the time, there didn't seem to be a need to pull you in. Before Mosley, the victims had been easy to identify and the cause of death was obvious."

"Well, I disagree," Brennan protested. "There's a lot more that goes in to a forensic investigation than simply determining a victim's name and what killed him or her. There's an abundance of trace evidence that needs to be methodically processed in order to ascertain who the killer is and connect them to the crime. Were you able to accomplish that without our assistance?"

Caroline frowned at Brennan. "Sugar, you know damn well we wouldn't be sitting at this table having this discussion right now if we'd already identified the killer. While I will agree with you that the Jeffersonian is the foremost forensics lab, that doesn't mean the FBI one is completely incompetent and they did gather and process a significant amount of trace evidence from each of the crime scenes we uncovered."

Brennan's ire was generally mollified by Caroline's open acknowledgement of the superiority of the Jeffersonian lab and she was slightly less combative with her next comments. "The Deon Mosley case is ours. I suggest you send all the evidence you've gathered so far from the other investigations over to the Jeffersonian for our team to examine. Additionally, we need to exhume the bodies of the previous victims so we can do our own osteological evaluation, in case there is anything that the other analysts missed. Do you have a theory as to who is killing these people and why?"

The answer came from Booth. "I think 'the why' is pretty obvious, Bones. There's someone else out there that was somehow connected to Durant's Web that doesn't want to be discovered and was cleaning house. Presumably, he eliminated anyone he thought might be likely to talk or somehow provide information that could lead back to him. If there's anyone left who knows who he is or what he's done, he's obviously convinced they're too scared to be a threat to him."

"And the who?"

Caroline shook her head. "No, Cherie. All we've got as our list of possible suspects for who's been doing this is a big ol' blank piece of paper."

"So, we're dealing with someone who presumably murdered somewhere between nine and thirteen people in cold blood simply to prevent them from providing information on other, potentially worse, crimes he likely participated in." Cam pursed her lips and shook her head. "Sad as they are, I think I prefer the crime of passion cases over the cold-blooded, pre-meditated, psycho serial killer ones. Those never seem to go smoothly for us. Let's just hope this time we can find him before he finds us."

"Amen to that," Caroline seconded as they all stood up to leave the room.

Brennan turned to Booth as they walked towards the elevators, resting her hand on his forearm to halt him for a moment. "Do you have much more to do here today?"

"Yeah. I wanna go ahead and get the wheels in motion on having all the evidence from the previous victims sent to the Jeffersonian then spend some time trying to clear my desk a bit. I have a feeling that this case is going to require a lot of my attention in the near future, so I should try and get as caught up as possible. You?"

"Wendell's in the process of cleaning Mosley's bones, but they won't be ready for me for a while still. I think I'll just pick up Christine and Hank from daycare and head home for the remainder of the day. Spend some time with them in case, like you suspect, this investigation becomes time consuming."

"Sounds good. I'll see you at home later." Booth leaned down and brushed a quick kiss across her lips.

"I love you, Booth."

"Love you too, Bones."

* * *

By the time Booth finally made it home, it was after 9:30 at night. He pulled into his driveway and killed the engine to the truck knowing that at that hour, both kids would already be asleep. The thought that he'd missed being part of the night time, going-to-bed ritual depressed him and it was times like these that he really appreciated the handful of quiet months he and Bones had taken earlier in the year to just spend time together as a family. He'd gotten a lot done tonight though and he'd cleaned off so much backlogged paperwork that his desk practically glistened. Hopefully that meant he'd be home in the evenings for at least the rest of this week.

As he crawled out of his truck and headed for the front door, he realized just how tired and hungry he was feeling. It had been a long day and just thinking about Durant again had ratcheted up his personal stress levels. That had been one of the most emotionally distressing periods of his life and he'd spent the last several months dealing with the fallout and trying desperately to forget about it. Glen Durant was a ghost that would always haunt him, but lately, with Brennan's help and support, Booth had been feeling confident that he controlled the specter as opposed to the other way around.

Booth tossed his keys in a small, ceramic bowl positioned by the front door for that very purpose and wandered towards the kitchen where he found a sandwich on a plate with a side of fruit salad already made and waiting for him. _Bones_ , he thought affectionately as he savored the warm rush of emotion that came over him just from knowing how much she cared about him.

Booth grabbed a beer from the fridge and looked through the glass walls that separated the kitchen from their bedroom. He expected to find Bones propped up against the pillows with her laptop resting on her thighs, her brow furrowed in concentration over whatever she'd be working on, but the bed and the room were empty so he sat down at the counter to eat the simple dinner she arranged for him. As he sank his teeth into the delicious sandwich she'd prepared, he couldn't help but ruminate on the joys of marriage.

Bones may have struggled a bit in the beginning with re-establishing boundaries and expectations as they transitioned from work partners to life partners, but she'd definitely gotten the hang of it now and he was frequently amazed by the little things she did that made him fall deeper in love with her all the time. He was constantly astonished at his good fortune and to this day, still marveled that she'd chosen him to share her life with. He was convinced that he was the luckiest man alive. She was smart, beautiful, and wholly devoted to him and their family.

As though he'd conjured her from his thoughts, he felt two slim hands slip up and over his shoulders from behind, sliding down his chest and crossing in front in a loose hold as she pressed herself against his back and gently nuzzled his temple. His position, seated on the stool, meant that the top of his head was just below her chin level and her soft bosom pressed up tantalizingly against the base of his neck. With the arm that wasn't holding his sandwich, he reached up and placed his hand over her arms, holding her pinned against his chest to let her know without words that he wanted her to stay there.

"Kids okay?" Booth asked out of the side of his mouth once he'd swallowed enough of the sandwich he'd bitten off to speak.

Brennan turned her head slightly so her cheek was pressed against the top of his head as she answered. "Yes. Christine went down a little while ago with no problem, but Hank's been a little fussy tonight. I think he might have a tooth getting ready to break through. I gave him an infant's dose of acetaminophen because he had a slightly elevated temperature and just finished settling him back down. Hopefully, he'll be good until morning now."

Booth felt guilty for leaving her alone to deal with a fussy baby. "I'm sorry I wasn't here tonight to help you out, Bones."

She pressed a soft kiss to the top of his head as she inhaled his scent and brushed her cheek back and forth, luxuriating in the feel of his thick, soft hair against her skin. "That's okay, Booth. We're partners in this as in everything else. I understand that sometimes we have to cover for each other when one of us can't be around for some reason. There's a high probability that next time, it'll be you home alone dealing with a fussy child, you know. Did you accomplish your objective in working late this evening?"

"Yeah. All the evidence that the FBI previously collected in this newest case of ours should get shipped to the Jeffersonian tomorrow. I also wrapped up the final remnants of the paperwork for the Menendez case, the Hickman case, and the Tennyson case, so I should be in pretty good shape for a bit." As Booth popped the last bite of food into his mouth and washed it down with a swig of his beer, he turned his stool so he could actually face his wife and get a good look at her for the first time since he'd walked in the door. Brennan backed up enough to facilitate his turning the stool around, but didn't release her arms from where they looped around his neck. Once he was turned, she stepped forward again, into the "V" of his thighs, and his hands instinctively sought out and landed on the swell of her hips, his eyes drawn to her chest that was immediately in front of him.

"That's my favorite Flyers t-shirt you're wearing, Bones." It may be primal, but the sight of her in his clothing always did something to him. It made him proud. It made him territorial. It aroused the hell out of him and he could already feel his body start to react at the sight of the soft cotton shirt molded to the gentle swells of her breasts. She was braless under his shirt. He could tell. "I just wore it last night as a matter of fact, during the game against the Washington Capitals."

"I know. It smells like you." The smile she gave him as she tilted her head and sniffed her shoulder was cheeky, but her fingers tightened briefly where they rested on his shoulders and her smile didn't quite seem to reach her eyes as much as usual.

"Everything okay there, Bones?" Booth prodded gently.

Brennan bit her bottom lip and her eyes shifted away from his to where her hands started running back and forth between his pectoral muscles and his shoulders in a sensual caress. "I know it's not rational, but . . ." she shrugged, "I was missing you tonight . . . even though I knew where you were and that you'd be home soon and I . . . I just wanted to feel like you were close by. While it's clearly illogical, donning your apparel imbued with your scent brought me a sense of comfort. It's silly really."

Booth crooked a finger and tucked it under her chin, raising her eyes to meet his again. "No, Bones. It's not silly. It's a perfectly normal way of establishing a connection to someone who's not there and you're welcome to wear my stuff anytime, okay? You're just lucky that your shirts are too small for me to wear," he teased.

She chuckled at his attempt to inject some humor and smacked him softly on his shoulder. "Booth." She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his in a tender kiss that lasted for several minutes before she pulled back. Sliding her hands down his biceps and along his forearms until she could entwine her fingers with his, she gave his hands a tug, pulling him to his feet and started to walk backwards towards their bedroom, dragging him along.

Booth sensed there was still something more to this than simple seduction though. "I'm not complaining about what you seem to have in mind, Bones, but are you sure everything is okay? You seem a little . . . on edge."

Brennan wasn't surprised at Booth's comment given his ability to read people, and her specifically. He was right. She was on edge. Feeling emotionally needy and desperate - sensations that were neither familiar nor comfortable for her.

The discussion earlier in the day about Glen Durant had shaken her more than she would have thought credible. But, she almost lost Booth because of that man. She blamed Durant for the bullets that riddled Booth's body as their home was destroyed and she blamed Durant for every hurt that Booth suffered while locked away in prison. She blamed Durant for the death of her dear friend, Lance Sweets. She even blamed Durant, in part, for Booth's gambling relapse. She'd felt no remorse, not even a flicker of regret, upon learning that Durant himself had been killed in prison. If she felt anything at all about that, it was relief. But after leaving the FBI building earlier that afternoon, the prospect that there was still someone else out there associated with that mess, someone who seemed to have no reservations about murdering indiscriminately, made her start to feel anxious. Much as she tried to view the situation rationally, her anxiety had increased with every tick of the clock's hands while Booth was away from home and now she couldn't think of anything except reassuring herself that he was safe and that he was whole in the most elemental way possible.

As they entered their bedroom, she dropped his hands and reached to undo the knot in his tie. "I just need you tonight Booth. I need to touch you." She pressed up on her tiptoes and placed a trail of nibbling kisses along his jawline. "And, I need to feel you – under me, over me, buried deep _inside_ me." His tie and several of his shirt buttons now undone, she leaned in and placed a sucking kiss at the hollow of his jugular notch. "Just . . . I need to know you're here, with me, and that you're safe."

Booth engaged, reaching for the hem of his shirt that she wore and pulling upwards. "I'm here, Bones, and I'm all yours. I'm not going anywhere."

Between kisses and caresses, they disrobed. Themselves. Each other. It didn't really matter. They fell onto the bed in a tangle of limbs, Brennan's hands and lips feverishly seeking out every part of Booth's body in her quest to reassure herself of his wellbeing. Booth let her take the lead, as she so obviously needed to do, and just enjoyed the sensations of her nails trailing across his skin and her mouth following behind leaving a moist track to mark her route as she lovingly worshiped him. Their lovemaking was tender, yet fierce. Brennan's heightened emotions generating an intensity to the experience that elicited a reciprocal response from Booth. In the aftermath, Booth held her to his chest, her head on his shoulder and one of her legs tangled with his as his hands lazily stroked up and down the cooling skin of her back. All he could think of was that he'd just been completely and thoroughly _loved_ and his heart had never felt fuller.

"Wow."

He felt her smile against his skin. "Is that all you can come up with to say?"

"Yeah, pretty much. I think you turned my brain to mush, Bones."

She turned her head just enough to place a quick kiss where her cheek had been before returning to her initial position. "I thought we had moved beyond all the issues we went through as part of the whole Durant case, Booth, but just hearing his name today in conjunction with a current investigation . . . I think I sort of panicked. All of the old fear and hurt from that time of our lives kind of snuck up on me and overwhelmed me. That that could even occur was, in and of itself, an unpleasant surprise." The arm she'd draped across his torso clenched him to her. "I won't lose you again. I simply refuse to."

"Hey. That was an extremely difficult time for us, Bones, on so many different levels, but we survived it and we're even stronger now because of it. Sure, we've accepted what happened, adjusted, and moved on, but everything we went through – the loss of our home, my imprisonment, the loss of Sweets, the gambling that resurfaced, our separation – all of those things and more are all linked together and will always be with us in some fashion. In my GA meetings, we talk about the fact that feelings and memories of our past experiences will sometimes surface at unpredictable moments and we need to acknowledge them when that happens and deal with them so they don't control us. It's not at all unreasonable for you to be feeling out of sorts at the reminder of everything we went through at the hands of Glen Durant." Booth chuckled. "If tearing my clothes off and having your way with me is how you need to cope with it, I'm okay with that."

She poked him in the ribs for his tease with her knuckle, her own smile breaking forth at his inevitable grunt.

"You mean everything to me, Booth." Exhaustion was catching up to her and could be heard in her voice. She'd been carrying so much worry and tension around before their lovemaking and the release of all that stress had left her physically and emotionally drained, ready for sleep.

"I know, Bones. I'd be lost without you too. Get some sleep now, baby."

* * *

 **A/N:** _Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Comments?_


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** _I'll be traveling for work this week and unable to post on Thursday, so you get Thursday's chapter a little early this week. Thank you for the great comments from the last chapter. It really helps the motivation to know people are enjoying this._

* * *

 **Disclaimer** : I own nothing _Bones_ related except my imagination. (11/17/15)

* * *

The next morning dawned into a beautiful late fall day. The air was cool and crisp, but felt clean despite, or maybe because of, the smell of falling leaves that hung in the breeze. The bright yellows and oranges of the trees in the Jeffersonian gardens stood out brilliantly against the clear blue of the morning sky. The man made himself comfortable as he sat down on a wooden bench tucked into a little niche in one of the garden walls and began to sip his warm coffee, pretending to read from his iPad as his eyes scanned the surrounding area.

It wouldn't be long now and she'd be coming around the corner. He'd been watching her off and on for over a year now and even though he had learned what he initially set out to learn about Temperance Brennan and her husband, Seeley Booth many months ago, he hadn't been able to stop himself from continuing to watch her. As such, he had become very familiar with her routines. He knew he didn't _need_ to keep up his surveillance of her any longer. There was nothing left to link him to Durant's Web and his sources told him that the investigation for that case had essentially dried up and been shelved several months ago.

But he _liked_ watching her.

She intrigued him.

His fascination with her started almost immediately after he started investigating her and had caught him by surprise. He still couldn't quite pinpoint what it was about Temperance Brennan that held him so in thrall. He hadn't felt this compelled by a woman since . . . well, since back when he'd been barely more than a boy, infatuated with her mother, Ruth Keenan. But even though there was a definite familial resemblance between Temperance and Ruth, the man was certain his fixation with Temperance was not simply an extension of what he used to feel for Ruth. Temperance's beauty was different than Ruth's and he didn't believe his attraction to her was merely physical, despite the leading role she frequently played in some of his more erotic fantasies these days. It was something more, he just didn't comprehend what.

Perhaps it was her singular intelligence. He'd sat in the back of a crowded auditorium last winter, listening to _'Dr. Temperance Brennan'_ give the keynote speech to a group of forensic scientists and even though the man didn't understand the nuances of everything she'd said, it was obvious that her peers had been riveted and impressed by her lecture. Standing at the podium in front of the crowd, she'd been elegant and poised, her technical discussion delivered with a profound passion for the subject matter, yet occasionally interspersed with material that had drawn appreciative chuckles from the audience, ensuring they were engaged. The man was quite simply . . . enchanted.

Then, there was her playful manner which she seemed to reserve only for those closest to her. There was an innocent exuberance about her when she frolicked in the park with her daughter or the way she laughed and smiled at her husband, Booth. That's what she called him. Just Booth. She fairly glowed any time she was able to make him sputter, blush, or roll his eyes to the heavens and she was glorious to watch in those moments. Her happiness was so noticeably linked to his and she went out of her way to draw forth his smiles. The man wanted that for himself.

He also acknowledge that he'd been thoroughly sucked in by her books and was a little star struck. He'd read them all now, some multiple times, and there was something in her prose that spoke to him and made him feel like he knew her psyche and, more appealingly, that she knew his. The man saw parts of himself in her characters and he'd been captivated by the way her mind must work to formulate such stories. Her brilliance was evident through the development of her elaborate plots and the colorful descriptions depicting the lives of the people in her stories. The accurate science and minute details of the most innocuous items in her stories made them seem so real, like the reader was there – in the story. There was never any fake scientific jargon or mumbo jumbo thrown into the story, like a Star Trek _tachyon-beam,_ to make it sound impressive.

The first time the man fully understood exactly how enamored of Temperance he'd become was just a few months after he started observing her, when he discovered she was pregnant. In those earlier days, he'd taken in the softening of her facial features and the increased curviness of her figure with a typical masculine appreciation without considering why her looks were subtly changing. However, his initial reaction to finally figuring out she was pregnant was an unexpected sense of betrayal and an intense jealous anger towards her husband, Booth. The man even entertained graphic fantasies of eliminating him – had actually started thinking through the logistics of taking him out at one point. Then, Temperance threw Booth out of their home for an extended period of time. A move that probably saved Booth's life, though they'd never know that.

By the time Temperance and Booth had reconciled and Booth moved back home with her, the man's jealousy had settled down enough that he fell back into just a watching pattern. He'd never stalked anyone before and was finding a peculiar satisfaction in the role of anonymous observer. Voyeurism. Like a hunter on reconnaissance, content to just watch. At least for now.

It was at this point in his morning's contemplation that he saw Temperance approaching from the east side of the garden, right about her usual time and pushing the baby stroller in front of her. After she'd given birth to her baby boy a few months ago, she'd started walking around her neighborhood with him in the mornings almost every day. The man assumed she used the walks as way to start her day with some sort of routine since she'd not been working at the time. Since coming back to work though, she had switched to taking her little boy on a walk through the Jeffersonian gardens almost every morning instead, before dropping him off at his daycare.

It had become the man's routine to sit on a bench somewhere in the shadows of the garden and watch them.

Being able to predict her appearance and seeing her in the mornings made the man feel like he had an intimate connection with her.

With the cooler temperature this morning, Temperance had placed the dark blue fleece blanket covered with dancing skeletons that her friend Angela had given her over her son's lap. The man knew Angela was the one who had given her the blanket because he'd been watching them the day they were at the playground together with Christine and Michael-Vincent when Angela had presented the gift to a then pregnant-but-not-for-much-longer Temperance. He'd assumed that someone with her substantial wealth would simply purchase whatever she wanted and not be overly emotive about simple gifts, but he'd been wrong. His Temperance had a sentimental streak and she cherished Angela's gift.

It was this unexpected sentimental side of her personality that had prompted the man to send her a small "welcome back" gift of his own when she returned to working at the Jeffersonian just a couple months earlier. Nothing fancy. Just a little something very similar to a gift he'd once given her mother. The parity in that amused him. He frequently wondered what she'd done with it.

As the man watched her pushing the baby stroller, he observed that this morning she seemed hurried. Her walk was brisk and she wasn't jabbering with her little boy or pointing things out to him like she often did. Her attention seemed directed inward and he didn't think she was even really aware of anything that wasn't immediately in front of the stroller's wheels. He'd seen her like this a few times before. Her mind was obviously elsewhere and he wondered what new case must've landed in her lap to preoccupy her attention so fully. An amused and somewhat infatuated smile curled his lips. Heaven help whatever poor bastard Temperance was hunting this time. In the man's opinion, from what he'd learned of her over the last year, whoever she was seeking didn't stand a chance against his woman.

.

* * *

The first thing Brennan did when she arrived at her office that morning, after forcing herself to spend almost an hour going through email messages and dealing with some of the more tedious aspects of her job, was to seek out Mosley's bones. She had instructed Mr. Bray to re-articulate the skeleton on the exam table in Exam Room #2 after he finished cleaning the bones the afternoon before, and that is where she headed the first chance she got. She had managed to fit in a couple solitary, uninterrupted hours studying the bones by the time Cam wandered in late morning, looking for an update.

"Have you found anything interesting yet, Dr. Brennan?"

"I always find many interesting things when I examine a set of bones, Dr. Saroyan. For example, there are several different remodeled fractures in Mr. Mosley's right fibula which tell me he suffered a significant injury shortly before he entered puberty. But, since I doubt a childhood injury has any relevance to the case we are currently trying to solve, I've simply noted it and moved on."

"Fascinating." Cam just smiled humorlessly, thinking to herself that she really ought to know better by now. "Let me rephrase my question. Have you found anything noteworthy that you think might be relevant to the investigation?"

"The only osteological damage I've detected so far that appears to be perimortem is to the skull. Obviously, there's the bullet entry hole into the parietal bone at the back of the head. Wendell should have recovered the bullet when he cleaned the bones. Did he give that to you?"

"Yes, he did. I scanned the bullet before coming in here and the computer should be searching for matches right now. It'll take it a little while longer."

"Oh. Okay. I also noticed a series of fractures to the temporal bone, just beneath the squamous suture on the right side of the skull. See here?" Brennan grabbed the magnifying glass on a swinging arm that was mounted to the exam table and positioned it so the enlarged image of the area of bone she was interested in popped up on the computer screen where it was easier to study.

"Huh," Cam grunted. "What do you think it means?"

"Well, it looks to me like some sort of blunt force trauma to the side of the head with a slightly down-to-up and front-to-back directionality. There's no remodeling of the fractures at all, so the injury must have occurred close to time of death, but there is some minor hemorrhagic staining in the cracks, indicating the victim was still alive when he sustained the injury."

"Do you think our assailant clubbed the victim on the side of the head to knock him out first, before shooting him?"

"I think that's a very probably scenario, but we don't have enough evidence yet to confirm. I want Angela to make some better scans of this area of the skull and input the fractures into the Angela-tron to confirm impact force and directionality and also to see if she can extract any information about the shape of the weapon. I also want Hodgins to swab this area for any trace that may be left on the bones which could help us to identify the weapon. We can examine the bones of the other victims for similar damage when they get here as well. Have you heard from Miss Julian as to when we can expect the other bodies to arrive?"

"Yes." Cam nodded, knowing Brennan wouldn't like what she was about to hear. "That's actually what I originally came in here to discuss. Caroline says they can provide us with copies of all the files, records, and trace evidence they've collected for the eight other suspects-turned-victims in this case, but they're only sending us the remains for two of the deceased."

"What?" Brennan's brow furrowed in displeasure. "Why only two?"

"Apparently four sets of remains were cremated by their families as opposed to casket burials."

"Well, that's discouraging. And the others?"

"The family of one of the victims took his remains home to South Dakota to be buried in a family plot. Another victim was a member of a family that was quite zealous in their religious beliefs, especially with respect to death and the afterlife. The family apparently put on quite the 'to-do' as part of the victims burial procession and the judge wasn't willing to create a stink to exhume either of those bodies unless there was an absolute necessity. That leaves us the two that Caroline says should arrive this afternoon, a Mike Andrews and a Frank Moore."

While Brennan was disgruntled about the message Cam delivered, she figured that even with just three bodies, there was some potential to find patterns in the method of killing or clues that could point them in the direction they needed to go to catch the killer. Ideally, she would have preferred to be able to study the remains of all eight of the other victims, but she resigned herself to making do with what she could get. She'd certainly accomplished more with less in the past.

"When do you anticipate Mr. Andrews and Mr. Moore will arrive at the Jeffersonian?"

"Caroline said they're exhuming the bodies this morning and we should be able to take possession of them around noon, today."

Brennan stripped the latex gloves off her hands and tossed them in the trash. "In that case, I believe I'll go to my office and put together the notes on what I've observed so far before I meet Booth for lunch. Thank you, Cam."

.

* * *

Later that afternoon, once the remains of Andrews and Moore had been delivered and prepared for evaluation, the Jeffersonian team gathered on the platform to begin searching for any new information that might point them in the direction of the killer. In both cases, the original coroner had identified the bullet wound to the back of the head as the cause of death and the forensic analysis had more-or-less stopped there. The bodies were still covered in hair, flesh, and clothing, although the clothing they wore for burial was not the same clothing they were wearing at time of death. That clothing was neatly folded and stored in evidence bags which had been delivered from the FBI evidence storage lockers earlier in the day with the rest of the evidence the FBI had collected during their initial investigations.

The Jeffersonian team, however, was treating these two bodies as though they were fresh discoveries and going through all the standard protocols of collecting information, even if much of their effort duplicated work already performed by the FBI. Cam had instructed everyone to conduct their examinations from the beginning, just like they would any other victim and ignoring the FBI reports temporarily, in order to ensure that steps weren't skipped or information missed because they bypassed procedure. As such, Cam was currently collecting fingernail scrapings from one victim and Angela was taking photographs for digital documentation while Wendell and Brennan were examining what they could of the skeletons before the flesh gets removed.

Hodgins skipped merrily up onto the platform to collect the evidence bag with Moore's clothes, intending to take it back to his office and search for particulates. "Hey, Wendell. Did you see the hockey game last night?"

"Yeah, man. It was great. How about that amazing shot by Wayne Simmonds? I couldn't believe the puck actually went into the net."

"Aw, man. I missed it. Ange and I took Michael-Vincent to a dinner reception at my brother Jeffery's place. His home hosted a family night so we went to visit and hung around after eating to play some board games until it was time to take Michael-Vincent home and tuck him into bed. So? Who won the game?"

"The Flyers. They scored three points," responded Brennan, not lifting her head from the skull she was currently examining.

Everyone on the platform paused in what they were doing to glance her way, surprised that she knew the answer. "Since when did _you_ start watching hockey games?" an amused Cam asked.

"Oh, I don't really. I like to watch Booth sometimes when he plays, but that's all. I think you're going to want to take a look at this Cam. Maybe you too, Dr. Hodgins. Mosley suffered some sort of blunt force trauma to his right temporal bone severe enough to damage the skull and it looks like there is bruising and an abrasion to the side of Moore's head here in the same general location consistent with what we observed on Mosley's skull. You should examine the flesh here before we clean the bones, Cam, and Dr. Hodgins, you might want to swab for trace. Mr. Bray, please check for a similar injury on Andrews' head."

"Yes, Dr. Brennan."

Cam moved over closer to Brennan so she could see what she was referring to.

"Sweetie," Angela's instincts were buzzing, and not about the case. "If you didn't watch the hockey game, how did you know the Flyers won or that they scored three goals?"

Brennan chuckled and shared a grin with Angela that could only be described as saucy. "I negotiated a deal with Booth at the beginning of the competitive season. If I take care of the kids at night and leave him alone while he watches his sporting event, then within 24 hours of when it's over, he owes me an orgasm for each point the winning team scores. Well, initially the deal was just for every point the Flyer's scored but . . ." Brennan scrunched up her nose in distaste and gave a little shake of her head, ". . that was completely unsatisfying, so we renegotiated to points by the winning team. When the Flyers lose, his monoamine levels often fall lower than normal and I don't usually collect until the following morning. But when they win," she couldn't hold back the grin that crossed her face, "he's usually very animated and I can collect right away." She ended with a serene, self-satisfied yet unfocused look on her face, leading the others on the platform to suspect she was recalling a particularly pleasant memory of the night before.

Angela cast a glance towards her husband as she tried with only minimal success to stifle the grin her friend's words generated and enjoyed the twinkling of merriment in his eyes. "Oh, so you're saying you and Booth must've . . . three times, last night . . . meaning the Flyers won."

"Yes." The look Brennan gave Angela was one of smug satisfaction, one half of her smile kicked up a little higher than the other. "The Flyers won. Three points."

"Dr. Brennan," Wendell cautiously interrupted, wondering whether he'd ever be able to watch another hockey game again without thinking about Booth and Brennan's post-game celebrations, "I think I see what you're talking about here on Andrews' head as well. Look . . . right there above his ear . . . I can see some definite signs of him being hit in the head when I pull his hair out of the way, but his marks are on the left side of his head."

"Yes, I see . . . very good Mr. Bray. There's definitely a pattern here based on these three victims."

"So, what? Our killer pops them on the side of the head first then shoots them?" Hodgins asked. "Why hit them first?"

Brennan shrugged matter-of-factly. "A hard enough blow to the side of the head right there would most likely knock the individual out, or at the very least, severely stun and disorient them. My suspicion is that the killer would render his victims unconscious first, then transport them to wherever he planned to dump the body before delivering the fatal shot. That would allow him to control the actual crime scene a little more so that he didn't have to worry as much about making noise or cleaning up after the fact."

Cam agreed. "It also supports our theory that the killer probably knew these victims in some sort of fashion since he would've had to get close to each of them first and there are no signs of a struggle on any of the victims. Since we know these men are connected through Durant's Web, it stands to reason that our killer was somehow connected to Durant's Web as well."

"I'll call Booth." With those words, Brennan stripped off her latex gloves, tossing them in the trash receptacle as she made her way towards her office.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Hope you enjoyed that. There are several small nuggets buried in here that we'll see again. Comments?_


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer** : I own nothing _Bones_ related except my imagination. (11/21/15)

* * *

One thing that Booth and Brennan both agreed on when they returned to their jobs after their six month hiatus was that they didn't want their work to completely eclipse their family life. Sure, they both acknowledged that the very nature of the work they did precluded a standard 9-to-5 workday and there would be unavoidable instances when they wouldn't be home for dinner or they'd spend part of the weekend at the office, but in as much as they could control it, they wanted to provide Christine and Hank normal childhoods with family outings to the zoo on the weekends or lazy summer afternoons spent lounging beside the neighborhood swimming pool. Their break from working had highlighted that while what they did was important, it wasn't everything. Their family time was important too.

With that in mind, when the weekend finally rolled around, Booth and Brennan decided to take Christine and Hank on a late Saturday morning picnic at the park before the weather turned too cold to enjoy sitting outside for an extended period of time. For the last couple days, both partners had been so focused on reading through the old case files and familiarizing themselves with the evidence collected for the eight previous victims that they'd barely had time for the kids or each other. It seemed like the only conversations they'd had recently revolved around whose turn it was to change Hank's diaper or what they needed to pick up from the grocery store.

Brennan was just placing the last couple lunch items in the picnic basket when Christine came skipping into the kitchen. "How much longer 'til we go, Mommy?"

"Just a few more minutes, Christine. Your dad's changing Hank's diaper and once he's done, we'll be on our way." Brennan quickly took inventory of Christine's outfit with the practiced eye of a mother who realized that at only five years old, Christine did not always exercise sound judgment in selecting the appropriate garments to wear for an outing. Pleased to see that Christine had put on a pair of leggings and a long sleeve shirt in deference to the cooler weather, Brennan pointed towards the couch in the living room. "No sandals today if you're wanting to run around the playground. Your sneakers are over there. Oh, and grab your jacket from your room too."

Christine wandered over to collect her shoes. "But I'm not cold."

"Well, not right now, maybe. But, we'll be outside for a couple hours and it's cool out today, so you need your jacket."

"I'll be fine, Mommy."

Brennan shut the picnic basket and directed a stern look at her daughter, the kind that the interns working for her dreaded seeing. "Christine Angela Booth. This is not negotiable. Grab your jacket or we don't go at all. If you get too warm, you can always take it off."

"Fine." Christine answered in resignation, her shoulders and her chin drooping dramatically low as she turned and shuffled off towards her room like she'd just been handed a death sentence. She knew when her full name came out of her mother's mouth, the argument was lost.

However, with the resiliency of the very young, she bounded happily back into the room just a couple minutes later, trailing her dad and baby brother with her jacket in hand. Her dejected mood of only moments before completely forgotten.

"Mommy, can I pick out the location where we lay down our blanket?"

"Sure, honey. You can help me spread it out and set up the picnic basket too."

"Chop, chop. Let's go people," hollered Booth as he traded and gave Hank to Brennan so he could grab the picnic basket and the pile of blankets she had amassed.

* * *

As soon as Booth parked the truck, Christine and Brennan hopped out and grabbed the picnic blankets and food from the trunk while Booth wrestled with detaching Hank's infant car seat from the stationary base in the back and settling their boy in his stroller. Then, loaded down with diaper bag and baby paraphernalia, he followed in their wake, pushing Hank across the grass towards where Brennan and Christine had staked out a spot for the blanket.

Christine selected a grassy area right beneath a large oak tree whose now brown leaves were still falling little by little when the wind blew. It was located just off to the side of the playground area and Booth would be able to prop himself up against the tree trunk while he watched Christine run around the swings and slides. Perfect.

"Come play with me, Mommy," Christine beseeched as soon as the largest blanket they brought had been fully spread out across the ground. Brennan looked towards Booth for direction.

"Go ahead, Bones. I'll hang out here for a bit with my main-man Hank. Go. Have fun."

"You're sure?" she asked, watching as Booth lifted Hank out of the infant seat and settled the boy in a sitting position between his father's legs. Hank immediately reached for the hand Booth had splayed across his belly and lifted one of Booth's fingers to his mouth to gnaw on his dad's knuckle, the ever present infant drool pooling at the sides of his mouth.

"Yeah. Go on."

Booth watched as Brennan and Christine walked hand-in-hand to the playground. For the next half hour, Brennan followed Christine down the slides, helped her cross the monkey bars, and competed with her to see who could go highest on the swings. By the time they stumbled back to the blanket, both with rosy cheeks and full of giggles, it was time for lunch.

No one in the Booth family noticed the man at the edge of the woods on the far side of the park, watching them through the telephoto lens of his camera.

When lunch was done, Christine ran back to the playground to play with the other kids her age while Brennan packed up the remnants of their meal and Booth fed Hank his lunch from a bottle.

"Look, Bones, I know we don't like to talk about work when we're at home or with the kids, but we never had a chance to speak about our current case yesterday and compare notes with what your team and mine have found. Did ya learn anything new yesterday?"

Brennan sighed, a full stomach and the sun warming her skin making her too content to put up a fuss. She loved the sight of Hank in Booth's arms, knowing instinctively that Booth would do anything necessary to protect his family. "We have made some minor headway, but I haven't discovered anything yet that points us in the direction of who might have killed those people last year. Hodgins found traces of the type of steel commonly used in making brass knuckles in the fractures on Mosley's and Moore's skulls. The chemical make-up of the particulates from both wound sites confirms they were likely hit with the same weapon. We also examined the photos taken by the coroners for the six people we don't have access too. While it's not as conclusive as if we had examined the bodies ourselves, there appears to be similar bruising patterns to the heads of at least a few of those victims as well. For the rest, the photos are inconclusive. Angela modelled the damage to the skulls of all three victims whose remains we have access to and we have developed what we believe is a likely progression of events that fits the evidence."

Hank was finished with his bottle and starting to falling asleep. Booth propped him up on his shoulder to burp him, then laid him down back in his infant carrier, tucking his special blanket around him and knowing the baby probably wouldn't wake again until they got home.

"So? What does Angela think happened?"

"Here." Brennan stood up and reached down for Booth's hands, pulling him to his feet. "It may be easiest to explain if I re-enact it for you."

Brennan shifted around until she was standing beside Booth on his right, both of them looking forward, towards the playground where they could see Christine building a sand castle with another child in the sand box. "We believe he probably started out standing beside Mosley and Moore like this, side-by-side and facing the same direction, like they were walking somewhere together."

Brennan curled the fingers of her left hand into a fist and looked down at it, Booth's eyes following hers. "Based on the shape and angle of the fractures in the temporal bone couple with the associated bone bruising we observed, we think the assailant was likely wearing brass knuckles on his left hand. Then, when the victim wasn't expecting it, the assailant swung his arm in a back-handed motion like this . . ." starting with her fist down by her hip on the opposite side of her body, she swung her arm up and back in slow motion until her pretend strike landed on the side of Booth's head, ". . . striking the victim in his temporal bone region, just above the ear. Now, fall down to the ground."

Booth dropped and laid down on his back, looking up at Brennan towering over him in her jean clad legs and a simple red sweater with a V-neck that showed a hint of cleavage. Even in the throes of killing him, he couldn't help but think she was beautiful.

"Once the victim was down and unconscious, the assailant could move them as he wanted." She nudged Booth's side with the toe of her boot. "Flip over."

Booth rolled onto his stomach and Brennan pointed her finger at the back of his head like a cocked gun. "He positioned his victims so they were looking away from him, which your FBI profiler will probably claim has some hidden significance, then he placed his gun near the back of their skull and pulled the trigger. Bang. They're dead."

Booth rolled on to his side and propped his head up on his elbow and Brennan joined him again on the blanket, sitting right beside him with her knees folded beneath her as her eyes sought out and located Christine running around the jungle gym with a couple other children.

"But, Andrews was different?"

"Same basic injury, but on the opposite side of his head. We think the same general scenario applies, but the assailant was likely standing in front of the victim, facing him when he struck instead of standing beside him."

"Huh." Booth sat up and shifted to where he was leaning against the oak tree, knees bent and legs spread, inviting Brennan to join him. She did, crawling over to where he sat and turning around so she could lean her back against his front and rest her hands on his upturned thighs.

They sat quietly like that for a few minutes, watching their daughter play and enjoying the opportunity to simply snuggle while Booth thought about what she'd told him. When he felt her shiver slightly, Booth reached for one of the other blankets they'd brought and draped it over his knees, effectively covering her from the neck down.

"Did ya learn anything else?"

"Well, our models indicate the assailant is probably 5'-10" to 6'-1" tall, which is too generic to be very useful but at least supports our supposition that the assailant is likely male since there are very few females in that size range." Booth's fingers slipped under her sweater at her waist and started lazily stroking up and down her sides.

"Mosley was Secret Service, but worked in the financial crimes branch of the agency, not the arm that deals with protection of high profile political figures," Booth relayed. "Based on the information in Durant's files about him, it appears he managed to skim a few tens of thousands of dollars off the top of a big counterfeiting ring the Secret Service busted up a few years back. Somehow Durant discovered what he'd done and was using that information to blackmail Mosley. Durant needed money to run his operation and he had a system set up to siphon funds from a few large banking operations where the loss wouldn't be immediately obvious. He used Mosley to protect his operation and misdirect any investigations that got too close to what he was doing." Booth's hands slid gently over her abdomen, then back to her hips, his warm fingers just teasing the waist band of her jeans and sending sensual shivers throughout her core.

"Any leads related to the weapon used to shoot the Mosley?"

"Aubrey took the ballistics information he got from Cam and did some checking. All nine of the victims we've uncovered appear to have been killed with the same gun. A standard 38 which can be found on almost any street corner. But, there's nothing in our records to indicate the gun has been used since." His hands got a little more bold and she felt his thumbs brush tantalizingly against the undersides of her breasts.

"So, either he hasn't killed anyone lately or he dumped the gun after he went on this particular shooting spree." She fought the urge to hold her breath as she waited to see where Booth would touch her next.

"Yeah. If he's a pro, and we think he probably is, then it's most likely the latter. What about bug boy? He find anything useful?" Booth's hand again stroked across her belly and this time, she felt his fingers dip briefly under the waist band of her jeans, almost to the top of her panties. Brennan was still dropping some of the baby weight she gained with Hank and the current jeans she wore were a little loose as she had purchased this pair a couple months ago and she'd lost several pounds since then.

"Hodgins is digging through all the evidence collected from the first eight crime scenes but is really just getting started on his part and doesn't have anything to report yet. Are you deliberately feeling me up?"

Booth froze. He hadn't been. Not really. His mind had been wandering in one direction while apparently his hands had wandered in another. But, now that she mentioned it, it didn't sound like such a bad idea to him and he let his hands start their wayward roaming once again. "Honestly? I wasn't . . . until now."

Brennan turned her head that was resting against his shoulder so she could see if the smile on his face matched the silky one in his voice. "You do realize that we are in a public park, in the middle of the day, with both your children nearby, don't you?"

Booth's grin turned wicked. "Hank's asleep, Christine's happily distracted and not giving us a single thought, there's very few other people here today and those that are have no interest in us." He leaned down and gently nipped her earlobe before whispering right into her ear, "You're not turning into a prude on me now that you're an old married lady, are you Temperance Brennan? Because I think I'd really enjoy feeling you come apart in my arms right about now."

Brennan relaxed deeper into his embrace, turning herself over to the care of his masterful hands. "You ought to know me better than that by now, Seeley Booth. Just don't expect me to behave graciously if you start something you can't finish. I'll collect when we get home, with interest."

With a chuckle, Booth reached down and popped the snap open on her jeans, sliding the zipper down, confident that his movements were hidden under the blanket on their laps. "Just remember . . . we're in a public park, Bones. No screaming."

The man on the far side of the park was rattled. He'd watched them through his telephoto lens in stunned amazement as Temperance had acted out the mock assault on her husband. He recognized the moves she made. They mimicked his own. But why? How? Was it just a coincidence or did it mean something more? His mind was racing in several different directions as he tried to understand and he almost didn't comprehend what was happening between the partners under that oak tree. Almost. But when he realized the expression on her face was one he had never seen before and what it meant, he depressed the shutter button on his camera, capturing that look of bliss for his own.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Made me feel creepy just to write it. Any comments?_


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** _Because some folks have expressed some concern, I will tell you this is not a kidnap story nor a rape story. Creepy dude may do some other creepy things (wink wink), but not those._

* * *

 **Disclaimer** : I own nothing _Bones_ related except my imagination. (11/26/15)

* * *

Brennan had Mosley's file spread out across her desk as she poured over every piece of information they'd collected so far and tried to find something new that they had overlooked somewhere along the way. At the sound of a light tapping on her doorframe, she looked up to see her father standing at the entrance, a winsome smile on his face and a banana-nut muffin in his hand.

"Dad." Her voice conveyed her surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey, Tempe. I was just on my way to pick up Hank from daycare before getting Christine from school and realized I hadn't come to see you in your office since you started back at work a couple months ago and thought I'd drop in for a few minutes. You know. Just to see what's new or different. I brought you a muffin too, in case you're hungry or anything." Max held up his muffin to show her as he approached her desk and set it down gently, within her reach. Then he tore off a piece and popped it in his mouth. "Mmm. It's really good and I know how much you enjoy banana breads. Did I catch you at a bad time?"

"No, not at all. Come on in." Brennan waved her arm in front of her to invite him in to explore her space, then glanced around the room, trying to think of how it might seem through someone else's eyes. "It's basically the same as before I left. I did get rid of a few artifacts when I packed up my office before so I brought in a few other items from home, but it shouldn't look too different."

Max strolled over to one side of the office and halted in front of his daughter's bookcase, wistfully admiring all the different paraphernalia she'd collected over the years. "To be honest, traffic was actually a little light and I got here earlier than I expected, so thought I'd stop in and say hello just to kill a few minutes before getting Hank. If I get to daycare too early, Mrs. Pendleton is likely to make me help out while they get Hank's things together," he confessed. He reached up and trailed his fingers carefully across an ancient burial vase, tracing the patterns engraved into the side. "I look at these shelves and I see all these amazing artifacts you've collected over the years. To me, it indicates that for each of these items, you have a story and a memory about a time in your life, something that meant enough to you that you kept a token of that event, and I still know nothing about it." Max shook his head, feeling a little maudlin. "Looking at these shelves, there's a lifetime of adventures and experiences here that I completely missed out on with you."

Brennan snorted. "Well, I still don't know much about your life from before you came back from wherever you went when you and Mom left Russ and me, do I? To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how much I really know about your life from before you two left us either, for that matter." She paused, then attempted to offer an olive branch. "I'd certainly be happy to tell you about any of the items you see there that you want to hear about, but, in the end, they're just things, Dad. The important part to me is that you're a part of my life now. Mine and Booth's and the kids. That's what Booth would remind me to consider."

Max looked back at Tempe with a smile. She'd come a long way with opening her heart over the years, even to an old con man like him and he couldn't be more proud of her. He knew how difficult it had been for her over the years to learn to simply accept him at face value without placing too much undue importance on past things that couldn't be changed and things she didn't really need to know the details about.

Max's eyes were naturally drawn to the files spread out in front of her, the photos of Deon Mosley's body in situ at the park standing out most prominently. "Is that the case you and Booth are currently involved in?"

Brennan glanced down and blew an extremely irritated sigh out of her mouth. "Yes. It's quite frustrating, really. We've been able to link several different victims together and we feel confident that they were all killed by the same assailant, but we're no closer to figuring out who that assailant is than we were when we first started this investigation and it's been over a week now. I've just been pouring over the original case files looking for something we must've missed. There has to be something in here that we're just not seeing yet."

Max turned and wandered over towards another wall of shelves, casually inventorying the artifacts she had on display so she wouldn't notice how his eyes twinkled listening to her grousing. Tempe was in a snit and he thought it was cute, especially since her ire wasn't directed at him this time. "You'll get him, honey. You always do." His confidence in her was absolute, and not without merit.

"Thanks, Dad. I wish I felt as certain as you do right now. Whoever the killer is, he's obviously a professional and he's not left behind a whole lot of evidence for us to work with."

Brennan saw the instant her father's whole body froze. It wasn't so much that he went rigid with tension like you often hear described as it was that he seemed to come to an absolute, total stillness, like he wasn't even willing to breathe and she pushed her chair away from her desk, rising to join him and see what had captured his attention so completely.

For Max, it was like a chill rolled through his entire body filling his veins with ice. He literally felt like all the blood in his head had just rushed out and he was sure that his face had gone pale beneath his tan and his mouth suddenly seemed drier than a desert. He gingerly lifted a hand and placed it on the shelf near his head, just to provide a little extra stability, to keep him grounded so he didn't faint away. Despite suddenly feeling lightheaded and dizzy, he knew his heart was still beating strong because he could hear the throbbing echo of each pulse rebounding inside his skull. As his daughter sidled up beside him, he forced himself to slowly inhale, then exhale, then ask "What's that?"

Max pointed to a small, shallow white cardboard box, roughly 4"x6"x1" that was sitting open on Brennan's shelf and she leaned forward to pick it up, wondering why Max looked at it like it was a pit of vipers. Inside the box was a thin layer of cotton padding beneath a $5 bill from New Zealand, and a small, hand carved wooden replica of an ice axe, approximately 5 inches long. Confused and, admittedly, a little disconcerted by her father's reaction Brennan did what she always did when she was uncertain in a situation – she resorted to facts. "I've been calling that my Hillary token after Edmund Hillary, the famous mountaineering explorer from New Zealand that is best known for being the first man to summit Mt. Everest back in the 1950s. That's obviously him on the $5 bill. New Zealand added him to their currency in 1992. And the carving is clearly of an ice-axe, like he would have used during his expeditions. I don't know how well this one replicates Hillary's actual climbing tool, but it seems clear that's what it's intended to represent. Hodgins told me it's made from basswood, a popular type of wood used by many wood carvers. Whoever carved it is quite skilled and it is very finely crafted. If you look very closely . . . right here . . . see that? It's a tiny bumble bee engraved into the shaft of the axe. Hillary was an avid beekeeper when he wasn't off exploring. Basswood comes from what we sometimes call lime trees, which are popular with beekeepers because of the fragrant, nectar-producing flowers they bloom even though they don't produce what we typically think of as limes like you might find at your local grocer."

" _It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves._ A famous quote from Hillary." Max looked where she pointed, but his eyes barely registered what they saw. His mind was whirling too furiously. He'd seen a very similar carving once, a long, long time ago. A gift given to his wife, Ruth, by a youthful admirer. A very scary and dangerous, youthful admirer with a penchant for violence. "Where'd it come from?"

Brennan shook her head and replaced the box on the shelf. "I'm not sure. It was an anonymous gift with just a simple 'welcome back' card that was delivered shortly after Booth and I started working again and I haven't decided what to do with it yet. The craftsmanship is exquisite so I don't want to just throw it out. Plus, I don't want to offend whoever sent it to me although I am, admittedly, quite baffled as to the meaning behind the gift. I was hoping that by leaving it sitting there with the box open, someone would eventually notice it and comment or admit to sending it to me." Brennan scrutinized her father's face. "I wasn't expecting _you_ to be the one to react to it though. What's the significance, Dad? Why's it so important?"

Max forced a carefree smile that he was far from feeling to his face. "It's nothing, sweetie. Probably just an old man dramatizing something that jogged an old memory. Listen, I've gotta run. I'm gonna go get Hank and Christine now and I'll see you back at your place later this evening."

"Okay, Dad. Thanks for stopping by. And thanks for the muffin."

He squeezed her arm affectionately as he leaned in to give her a quick kiss on the cheek, before turning and leaving the office. Brennan watched him go with a puzzled frown on her face, then turned to look at the carving again, wondering exactly what her father was keeping from her this time. She couldn't recall ever seeing him rattled quite like that before but knew there was no point in trying to extract his secrets. He wouldn't tell her anything unless he wanted to. She'd learned that lesson the hard way.

For his part, Max made his way to the daycare area of the Jeffersonian trying to convince himself that he was overreacting and his suspicions couldn't be right. The carving alone probably would've given him pause, but wouldn't have shocked him as much as seeing the blatant reference to Hillary that accompanied it. The group of hooligans he and Ruthie had gotten mixed up with in the 70s had all adopted the names of famous explorers. One of the men in that group, who had really been more of a boy still at the time, had developed quite a crush on Ruthie and given her a very similar carving once as a token of affection, albeit the workmanship was a little rougher back then based on Max's recollection. Back in the 70s, Edmund Hillary was still a dashing, sexy explorer, very much in the public eye. As such, the young hoodlum had adopted Hillary as his gang nickname. Something perceived as modern and hip during that era as opposed to some old historical explorer . . . like Columbus, Max's moniker.

As far as Max knew, Hillary was the only member left from that strong arm crew, besides Max, that wasn't confirmed deceased. So, it was _possible_ that somehow he had found Tempe. But why come after her now, after all this time? Why toy with her? Why send her a gift? What did it all mean? What other explanation could there be? Max didn't know the answers to any of these questions, but he damn well intended to find out.

* * *

Jessie Stahr sat in the student cafeteria at American University, eating his lunch as he studied for his Organic Chemistry II exam later that afternoon when a shadow fell across his table. Looking up, he saw the man standing there watching him, hands in his jacket pockets. There was something about the man that Jessie didn't really like . . . a coldness in the eyes, a lack of empathy for others, he wasn't quite sure. But, Jessie was the proverbial starving graduate student, just barely able to make ends meet month-to-month and the man was willing to pay him for what seemed like pretty innocuous tidbits of information in Jessie's mind. There was no need for them to become best buddies. Theirs was a business arrangement.

Without asking, the man pulled out a chair at the table and sat down. "Afternoon, Jessie."

Jessie nodded his head, always feeling a little leery around this guy who had searched him out several months earlier. "Sir."

The man smiled, even if it didn't reach into his eyes. He liked the deference this boy paid him. Showed respect. "So, what can you tell me this week?"

Jessie shrugged. "Dr. Brennan and her team are working on a relatively new case. It's been a little over a week now and I don't think they're any closer to wrapping it up than they were in the beginning. They all seem a little bit down about it to be perfectly honest. I don't think they're used to struggling this much."

"Okay. What can you tell me about this new case?"

Jessie looked around the cafeteria, but no one was paying them any attention. "Not a whole lot. As I've told you before, I'm not on her team and don't have direct knowledge of most of her work. I intern with a different group there so I only pick up odds and ends about what she's working on. But, I know from talking to the intern that's helping her on this one, a guy named Wendell Bray, that it has something to do with that Durant guy that was all over the news a year or so ago. Some kids dug up some dude's body in Rockville Creek Park a week or so ago and they've somehow decided that he's part of that whole government corruption ring thing that went down. It got them all excited and they brought in a couple other bodies that had previously buried that they think may be linked together. The FBI is buzzing all around them now although, since they've not found anything big yet, the furor is tapering off a little."

Damn.

Mosley.

The pieces fell into place for the man.

Jessie may have been too young and too inexperienced around evil to understand the cold, hardness that suddenly appeared in the man's eyes, but he still felt the chill run up his spine and he was looking forward to this interview being over. The man pulled an envelope out of his pocket, sliding it across the table to Jessie, as he got up to leave. "Good work, son."

As the man walked away, Jessie opened the envelope and found $250 in cash inside. His eyebrows went up as that was more than he'd been paid in the past. It never occurred to him that by taking the cash, he was setting himself up as an accomplice to whatever deeds the man planned, making it more difficult for him to ever come clean without getting himself in trouble too. Instead, he just pocketed the cash, thinking about that new coat he'd seen at the sporting goods store a few weeks ago. After all, winter was just around the corner.

As the man left the building, he thought about his options. He _could_ simply disappear. Move to another part of the country and take up a new identity. He'd done that in the past when things got a little hot, going from Ohio to Los Angeles to Chicago and now here. But, he was tired of moving and starting over. He liked the place he had set up now. Four seasons with winters that weren't too cold and summers that weren't too hot. It would be a good place to retire to in another decade.

So, if he stayed, he'd have to deal with Temperance. If anyone were going to be able to connect him to the misdeeds of his past and track him down, it would be her. That left him with really only two options to consider. He could see if Temperance Brennan could be swayed from her current objective with some pointed discouragement. Maybe a few scare tactics would convince her and that husband of hers that this was an investigation they wanted to walk away from. It had worked on her parents after all – a little scare and they'd fled. Although, based on what he'd learned about Temperance and Booth and their history, he doubted how effective intimidation would be. The only other alternative left open to him if that failed was to kill her and her husband too. Killing Booth was an easy decision, but the man had become fond of Temperance.

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 **A/N:** _To those of you in the US who celebrate it, Happy Thanksgiving! To everyone, whether you celebrate it or not, I am thankful to you for your support of my stories and I hope you enjoyed this last chapter. Next chapter will be posted on Saturday. Comments, as always, are welcome._


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** _Forgive me?_

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 **Disclaimer** : I own nothing _Bones_ related except my imagination. (11/28/15)

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The sounds from _Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree_ pumped through the stereo speaker system for what seemed like the tenth time in a row. It wasn't even Thanksgiving yet, but Christine's kindergarten-aged dance class was working on their routines for the Holiday Dance Recital coming up in mid-December and listening to the same Christmas carols over and over and over again was not one of the items Brennan would place on her top ten list of the joys of parenthood. Another five minutes and they should be done for the day, thank goodness.

Hank was sitting on her lap as she read him a story. He'd look at the pictures with her and babble nonsensical words back at her, but for the most part, he seemed more curious about the buttons on her shirt. Brennan was wearing a soft, pale blue colored polyester-rayon blended blouse with printed shell buttons down the front that had an iridescent shimmer to them. Hank kept reaching out to touch (or grab) her buttons and three times now, just in the hour they had been sitting there waiting on Christine, he'd managed to pop open several, leaving Brennan scrambling to maintain her modesty as she subtly tried to close them again without alerting the other waiting parents to the fact that her six month old son was attempting to bare her breasts to all and sundry. Just like his father, she thought with wry humor, always going for the breasts.

Finally, the horrid music stopped and didn't immediately start up again, which meant the kids were done for the day. As all the kids dispersed, looking for their parents, the dance instructor announced to the parents a couple of skills the children should be working on at home until their next dance class.

Outside in the parking lot, Brennan strapped both children into their car seats in the back of her Prius and started to drive towards home, her mind thinking ahead to what food they had on hand that she could prepare for dinner or whether she'd need to stop at the store.

Christine was not one to remain silent for long and just a couple minutes into the drive, started peppering her mother with questions. "When do we get our Christmas costumes for the dance show, Mommy?"

"Well, sweetie, we just ordered them at your last lesson, last week. I assume they probably won't come in until early December. Probably a week or two before your recital."

"Meredith says she'll have hers before anyone else gets to have theirs and that she's going to wear it all around her house, every day until the recital." There was a definite jealous pout in Christine's voice with that statement.

"Her mother _is_ the dance instructor, you know. As such, it makes sense that her mother might go ahead and give Meredith her costume as soon as they arrive. You'll get yours shortly thereafter though, so it's not like she'll have hers for a long time before you get yours."

"I can't wait until I get mine. I'm going to wear it . . . . Aaaaahhhhhhhhh!" Christine started to scream a terrified, blood curling screech at the top of her lungs. The noise was so sudden and so startling that Brennan swerved her car, barely staying on the road.

"What's the matter with you, Christine?" she yelled at her daughter over the screaming.

"Snakes, Mommy, snakes." Christine was starting to sob now while still screaming. A quick glance in the rear view mirror and Brennan could see she was kicking her legs up and down as she thrashed around in her car seat, completely losing control. "Get them out, get them out."

Hank, who had been peacefully enjoying the drive, reacted to the distress in his sister's voice and started hollering and crying at the top of his lungs too, confused about the reason for the fuss, but recognizing that something bad must be happening.

Brennan immediately pulled the car over to the side of the road and turned around in her seat to look into the back of the car. Her heart stopped at the sight of several (she didn't bother to count) brown and tan stripped looking snakes crawling around on the bottom of the floor board. Christine's leg kicking was agitating the snakes, scaring them, and one of them looked like he could be coiling to strike.

"Christine. Freeze," Brennan's voice was sharp as she reached for her own seat belt and hopped out of the car. "Stop kicking your legs. You're upsetting them and you just need to hold still for a minute."

Christine tried to do as her mom said, but she was terrified. She pulled her legs up onto her car seat and curled herself into a tight little ball, as tight as she could make herself, trying to get away from the creepy, legless monsters. Her whole body was shivering and tears were streaming furiously down her cheeks.

Brennan flung open the door on Christine's side of the car. "Honey," she tried to make her voice sound calm, masking the panic she felt inside as she tried to watch both her daughter and the snakes that were right beneath her daughter's feet. "You need to straighten your legs again so I can unbuckle your seat belt and get you out of there, okay?"

Christine shook her head no. There was no way in hell she was sticking her feet out towards the snakes again.

"Just a little bit, sweetheart. Just straighten them real slowly, okay? So I can get to you?" Brennan slid her hands down Christine's chest until she could feel the belt buckle that was hidden inside Christine's curled form at her chest. She popped the latch and felt the seat belts give way slightly then slid her hands down seeking the buckle that was closer to her waist, wishing Christine would unfurl just a bit so she could see what she was doing. Christine's arms were already starting to wrap around her mother's neck and as soon as Brennan had the last buckle popped open, she swooped her arm under Christine's legs and lifted her out of the car seat in a bridle hold.

Once they were clear of the car, Brennan hip-checked the door, shutting it and locking the snakes inside as Christine wriggled around and clung to her mother like a monkey on a vine.

"Shhhh, it's okay now, sweetie," Brennan cooed to her daughter, trying to reassure her as she rocked her back and forth. "Shhh, shhh, I've got you. You're safe now." They stood like that for several moments, clinging to one another, before Brennan started to set Christine down. But, Christine just tightened her hold on her mother's neck and didn't want to let go. "Christine, honey. I've got to get Hank out, okay pumpkin? You're going to have to let me go long enough to get your brother out too, all right?"

Brennan pulled Christine's arms from her neck, but her daughter wouldn't leave her side and, with her hand fisting the back of her mother's shirt, followed her mother over to Hank's side of the car, standing behind her and peeking carefully around her mother's hip into the car as Brennan opened the door again. Brennan grabbed her son's car seat as quickly as she could, ignoring the big fat tears rolling down his cheeks as he stared at her, and plucked him from the car, slamming the door behind him.

Both children out of the car now, Brennan picked up Hank, trying to comfort him while also squatting down so she could hold on to Christine again too. Her heart was racing and she could feel the adrenaline coursing through her system as she worked to stay calm and steady for her children. After a few moments, she stood back up, setting Hank back in his car seat. He started to fuss as soon as she put him down, not wanting to be left alone yet. "I need to call Daddy," she told Christine. "My phone's in the car. Watch Hank, will you?"

Christine started playing peek-a-boo to distract her brother. At first, he just stared at her as his bottom lip quivered, trying to decide whether it was okay for him to stop being upset, but as she persisted, he started to get excited and would chortle at her when she popped out from behind her hands, yelling "peek-a-boo" at him. Brennan figured it was a good way to get Christine's mind off her scare too. She took her role as big sister very seriously and now her focus was entirely engaged with keeping Hank happy.

Peeking through the window, Brennan didn't see any danger near her phone so she once again, quickly opened the door, grabbed the phone, and slammed it shut again, hitting the speed dial for Booth's number as soon as the phone was in her hand. God, she hated snakes.

 _Hey, Bones. How'd the dance lessons go?_

"I need you to come pick us up. We're on the side of the road off Magarity Rd, just west of Cherri Drive." Her voice was abrupt, her mind still in the fight or flight survival mode, focused on simply accomplishing her task of getting Booth there ASAP. Niceties could wait.

 _Yeah, sure. Are you okay? You sound different. Did you have an accident or something?_

"No, Booth. We're fine. We're all fine. It wasn't an accident and no one is hurt, but I think you should probably call the FBI field techs too. I'd like them to check out my car."

 _Woah, Bones. What the hell's going on?_

"I'm . . . I'm not sure, but I think someone broke into my car while we were in the dance studio. I'll fill you in when I see you. How soon can you get here?"

 _I'll be there in 20 minutes._

After disconnecting with Booth, Brennan called Cam and suggested she send Hodgins to the scene too. Snakes were his thing after all. Not hers, she thought with a shudder.

Once the calls were made, she sat down on a rock just a few feet away. Now that the immediate danger had been dealt with and her calls made, she could feel the after effects of the chemical cocktails her body had just dumped into her system in response to her fear sensors start to dissipate, the beginning of the adrenaline crash. Brennan's hands were shaky and her stomach felt a bit nauseous. Her mind was flicking between images of writhing snakes in her car, the extreme expression of terror she'd seen on Christine's face and hoped never to see there again, and naked Booth. It was well documented that a desire to copulate was a normal physiological reaction to the intense hormones pumping through a person's system once the initial fear passed. If it weren't for the kids and needing to process the scene, she'd wrap herself around him so tightly no one would be able to tell where she stopped and he began.

Brennan hated snakes and this seemed so . . . personal. A direct attack.

Now that the initial threat had passed, Christine's child-like curiosity kicked in and her daughter was reacting to her body chemistry with an abundance of excitable energy. She couldn't sit still. Brennan watched as she'd go over and look through the windows, fascinated by what she saw in there, then run back to Hank and tell him all about it. Then, do it again.

Booth's truck pulled up behind her car, stopping about 20-feet away, and he quickly hopped out of the car to find out what exactly was happening.

"Daddy!" Christine ran at him and threw herself into his arms, reverting back to a scared little girl again now that her big, tough daddy was there to protect her. She burrowed her head into his shoulder and clung tightly to his neck as Booth carried her over to where Brennan was sitting. Brennan couldn't help herself. She also stood up and as soon as Booth was close enough, wrapped him and Christine in a three-way hug, needing to feel the comfort and strength of his arms around her just as much as her daughter did.

Booth glanced at the car and couldn't see anything wrong with it. "So, you gonna tell me what happened now, Bones?"

Before she could speak, Christine chimed in. "It was awful, Daddy. There are snakes all over the back of Mommy's car." She shuddered as she said it and Booth could feel her trembling.

"Snakes? As in, real live slithering and hissing snakes?"

"Yeah. I was so scared. I thought they were going to eat me until Mommy got me out of there."

He looked at Bones incredulously. "There are several in there, Booth. Not a lot, but several and I'm pretty sure their placement was deliberate. Their coloring is similar to that of a copperhead, but I don't think that's what they were. I didn't take time to check them out though. I just wanted to get Christine and Hank out of there and I tried to ignore them as best as I could."

"Jesus, baby." He squeezed her a little tighter wondering who would do such a thing and what it meant.

About that time, the first of the FBI mobile lab vans showed up with Hodgins in his mini-cooper pulling in not too far behind.

Brennan explained to Hodgins and the FBI techs what had happened. She didn't notice the snakes when she put the kids in the car, leaving the dance studio, but once they started driving, they came out of somewhere and were crawling around on the bottom of the floor board in the back of the car. Christine was the first to notice them and when she alerted her mother, Brennan pulled over and got the kids out of the car until the scene could be processed.

Booth called Aubrey back at the office and told him to see if there were any security cameras in the parking lot where Brennan's car was parked during Christine's dance practice. With any luck, they'd be able to pull some footage of what happened and get a lead on whoever did this.

A few minutes later, Hodgins came over holding what looked like a standard ivory colored cotton pillow case except this one was wriggling and moving about. He held it up like it was show-and-tell day at the elementary school. "Well, they weren't poisonous Dr. B."

Brennan and Christine both recoiled away from the bag. "You captured them all? In there?"

"Yep. Six of them." He chuckled, like he'd just been given an early Christmas present. "These little guys are Nerodia Sipedon, more commonly known as Northern Water Snakes. They're one of the snakes most frequently mistaken as copperheads, because they have similar coloring with the alternating tan-and-brown stripes, but they don't have the distinctive hour-glass shape of the dark bands that copperheads are known for. Well, that and their heads are pretty different as they're not pit vipers, but the coloring is what confuses most people."

Brennan still wasn't too eager to get close to Hodgins or his bag. "Could you tell how they got into my car?"

"Well, I can only assume someone must've jimmied your locks to get the car open, but then these guys were placed in this bag under the passenger's side front seat of the car. My guess is that since it's kind of cool outside, they were pretty content to stay in this bag until you started the car. The rumbling of the engine under their bellies would've disturbed them and woke them up fully. Once you started driving, they came out to explore where they were."

"What's that smell?" Booth asked, his nose curling up in distaste.

"These little guys will defend themselves when they feel threatened. In addition to trying to bite whoever tries to grab them, they'll defecate and also release a strong smelling musk scent. That's what you're smelling. They weren't that happy with me trying to stuff them all back in the bag."

"You're going to take them back to the lab with you, aren't you?"

"Yeah. I've got a cooler in my car that will contain them until I get there, then I'm going to examine this bag for any evidence it might contain as well as see if I can determine anything from the snakes that might help me identify if they were captured wild or raised in a human habitat. With any luck, they'll give us some sort of clues that will point us to who did this."

As Hodgins drove away, Booth brushed a stray strand of hair back from Brennan's face and tucked it behind her ear. "They don't need you guys here anymore this afternoon to process this. Why don't you let me take you and the kids home and I'll come back later to pick up the car?"

"Yes. Going home sounds good, but when you come back to collect the car, don't bring it home. Get rid of it." Brennan picked up Hank's car seat and started walking towards Booth's truck.

"Huh? What do you mean?" Christine was still in his arms, so he wandered over to her side of the car and plopped her into her car seat too.

"Check for snakes, daddy." Booth leaned down and looked under both of the front seats to make sure there was nothing there and gave Christine the all clear signal figuring this was a new routine he'd be doing for at least the next couple weeks.

"Get rid of it, Booth. I'm never getting back in that car again. Neither is Christine. So, get rid of it. Sell it. Donate it. Leave it on a street corner with the keys in the ignition. I don't care as long as I never see it again."

"That car's not even a year old, Bones. Don't you think that's kinda wasteful?"

"I don't care. I'll go buy another new car this weekend. One that won't remind us of this one at all. I just finished two novels earlier this year and my publisher is thrilled. Money is not an issue and I could buy a new car every week for a year straight if I wanted to, but I don't ever want to see _that_ car again." Brennan was adamant as she buckled herself into her side of the truck. She hated snakes.

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 **A/N:** _Did you see that one coming? Hope you liked it. Comments?_


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** _Glad you all enjoyed the last chapter. It's tough picking on the kids like that._

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 **Disclaimer** : I own nothing _Bones_ related except my imagination. (12/3/15)

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"The drupe is key."

Booth looked up from his cup of coffee to find an excited Hodgins standing next to the diner table he was sharing with Brennan for breakfast the next morning, completely lost as to what Hodgins was saying. "The drupe? What the hell is that, a new-age rock band or something?"

Hodgins pulled out a chair and plopped down next to Brennan, the enthusiasm in his voice making him talk even quicker than normal. "No. Think of . . . of a peach. A piece of fruit where there is a fleshy outer layer that surrounds a shell with an inner seed. That's what we call a drupe. At one of the crime scenes from one of the victims, the FBI field techs collected a small drupe, about the size of a pea, because the body was indoors and the drupe didn't seem to belong with the scene, but they never did anything but bag it."

"Okay. What's that got to do with anything?"

"The drupe they collected comes from a linden tree. The bag that was placed in Brennan's car with the snakes also has linden tree pollen on it. One of the snakes recently ate a mouse that hadn't been digested yet and the mouse had been snacking on a linden tree bark too. I pulled out the original drupe that they collected at the scene and what's left of the fleshy part has decayed by now, but I was able to pull some trace off the fruit and found some rubber particulates that are chemically consistent with a rubber product that has a durometer of close to 75."

"Just like shoe rubber," stated Brennan.

"Exactly. So I figured our bad guy, whoever he is, must live somewhere near where linden trees grow and near where there's a natural body of water for him to collect those snakes. He must've stepped on the drupe near his home and carried it into the victim's house lodged into his shoe where it worked its way free while he was there."

Booth felt like he was missing the point here. "So, are these linden trees pretty rare? Is this some sort of a major breakthrough?"

Hodgins looked at Booth like he'd just kicked his dog, shoulders falling forward in a slump. "No. They're not rare at all. We don't see many of them right in the downtown area, but they're pretty common trees all up and down the eastern seaboard. Angela's going through and trying to map any known locations of linden tree groves near bodies of water that are within about a 50-mile radius of downtown, but it'll end up being too many locations for us to pinpoint the right spot until we get something more to help refine our search."

Brennan nodded her head. "Very good though, Dr. Hodgins. It's a start and it gives us a connection to tie one of the victims together with what happened to me yesterday."

"No. No, no. Not very good." Booth complained, his worried eyes turning to Brennan. "If bug boy here is correct and this linden tree stuff connects your snakes in the car incident with the killings from over a year ago, that means we have a professional killer on the loose out there who has identified _you_ as a target, Bones. It means somehow he's learned about our investigation and he thinks you're the one he needs to be worried about. After yesterday's stunt, I'm not sure he wouldn't hurt our kids to get to you too. This is not good. This is bad, Bones. Very bad."

* * *

It was only about a 5-1/2 hour drive from Washington DC to Athens, Ohio. Maybe a little more if you hit some traffic or a little less if you drove with a leaden foot. Max left his apartment after a leisurely late-morning breakfast and arrived in Athens in the early afternoon. He spent a little time just driving around town and getting the lay of the land before he finally parked his car on a side street and started to wander around on foot. Most of the town was dominated by the presence of Ohio University, but he managed to find a quaint little coffee shop that afforded him a clear view of the florist shop across the street. He parked himself in front of the window there with a newspaper, content to sit and wait while he drank some coffee and ate a beignet.

When it was just a few minutes before 6:00, he folded his newspaper, tossed his empty coffee cup in the trash, and wandered across the street. He hadn't seen anyone enter or leave the florists shop in the last quarter of an hour and assumed that by now, only the shop manager was left inside. That made his self-appointed task easier. Slipping on his gloves before entering the building, Max flipped the sign on the door to "Closed" and turned the lock.

"I'll be with you in just a moment." The soft, sweet sounding voice came filtering through the open door to the back room and Max headed that way. When the elderly woman who owned that voice walked back into the main part of the store, looking around for the customer she thought she'd heard, she'd felt Max's hand slip around from behind to cover her mouth at the same time she felt a quick pinprick to her neck. She didn't feel anything else for a while after that.

Max studied the unconscious woman in his arms as he laid her down on the floor. He was getting too damn old for these types of games, but he'd do what he had to if Tempe and her family were being threatened. He still remembered the day Ruth gave birth to Temperance, although they'd called her Joy back then, and seeing that little bundle of scrawny arms and legs that represented his daughter had filled him with such a sense of pride and wonder and a fierce protectiveness which had never diminished, even as she grew older. One look and he realized daughters were different than sons when it came to how fathers would protect them. Even so, that feeling that his heart knew no bounds and could be no fuller had only been eclipsed by each of the grandbabies she'd given him and Max knew there was nothing . . . nothing at all he wouldn't do to protect Christine and Hank.

Once he heard about the snake incident yesterday, he knew coming here today was a necessity. He couldn't put it off anymore.

Leaving the woman on the floor for a moment, Max found a simple four-legged chair and moved it into the walk-in cooler where some of the floral arrangements were stored. He had to rearrange some of the planting materials in order to provide enough clear space for the chair, but it didn't take long. Then he dragged the woman into the cooler as well and hoisted her into the chair, securing her in place with some packing tape he found amongst her supplies. The cooler would add another layer of sound proofing to what was to come and any noises she made were that much less likely to be heard outside the store.

He had about another ten minutes until the quick shot he gave her wore off, so he wandered around the store, dimming the lights so it would appear the store was empty from outside. When he saw a spool of 2" wide, dark blue ribbon he took that with him back into the cooler and wrapped it around the woman's eyes, so she was effectively blindfolded.

Max stepped back to look at her.

Elizabeth. He heard she went by Betsy these days, but when he'd known her in her youth, she'd been called Lizzy. She'd be in her early sixties now. She was a handsome woman still, her figure not too thin or frail looking and not too overweight. The short style she wore her silver hair accentuated her strong cheek bones and flattered her facial features. She was probably the type of woman who took a walk around the neighborhood every morning, greeting the children as they got on the school bus and patting the heads of the dogs that walked by. Undoubtedly, she even baked cookies for the local church bake sales.

Tempe would kill him if she learned he'd resorted to terrorizing 'innocent' little old ladies now. He could hardly believe it himself.

Her respiration changed slightly and Max could tell she was on the verge of waking up so he grabbed a misting spray bottle filled with water and started spraying the droplets onto her face. When she jerked violently, trying to escape the misting water, he knew she was finally fully awake.

"Hello, Lizzy."

She sat very still at the sound of his voice, but he heard the catch in her breath and could see the rapid pulse beat of her heart in the side of her neck, just above her collarbone. "Who are you? What do you want?"

Max smiled. _Atta girl, don't let them see your fear_. He was glad he elected to blindfold her as she probably would've seen right through his bluff if she'd been able to watch him.

"I'm an old friend of your brothers, Lizzy." Yep. He saw her chin come up at that. She knew that meant he wasn't there to sell her girl scout cookies. Her brothers were bad news and had always had friends that were bad news too. "Now, I know exactly what happened to your older brother. I know he's dead. I know when he died. And, I even know where he's buried. Today, I'd like to talk to you about your younger brother, Lizzy. What can you tell me about how Jason's doing these days?"

"He's not here. He doesn't live locally."

"I believe you, Lizzy, but that's not much of an answer." Max tried to keep his voice calm, but still unforgiving. He sprayed her face with water again and watched her flinch. It might frighten her, but wouldn't do much more damage than causing her makeup to run.

"I . . . I don't know where he is. We don't keep in touch."

"Lizzy, Lizzy, Lizzy," his voice sounded disappointed and he squirted her once more, watching her jerk away. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Jason may not call you every day, but little brothers almost always keep in touch with their bigger sisters and I don't believe you don't know more about him than you're telling me. We can save a lot of time and a lot of . . . discomfort if you'll just tell me what you know."

Max started playing around some with the flower arrangement tools she had on a little table top in the room. With her eyes covered, she'd hear the noises and put the worst possible connotation on every sound she heard, which would only work well to Max's benefit. He didn't plan to actually hurt her, not if he could avoid it, but she couldn't know that. She had a file for sharpening her shears and he ran one of her blades across the file, knowing how threatening that sound could be.

Betsy swallowed. "He lives in Virginia now. Near Washington DC."

That's the answer Max had both expected and dreaded to hear. It confirmed his worst suspicions. "How long has he been there?"

"I'm, uh, I'm not sure. Maybe six or seven years. I don't recall exactly when he made the move."

"What's he doing there these days?"

Betsy was silent, her lips pressed together in a tight line.

"Is he still in the old family line of business? Or does he have a new job? Do you think he went straight like you?"

Still she kept silent.

Max heaved a sigh and looked around the room. He picked up a dull plastic card with some floral information printed on it off the work table. It didn't look much different than the size or shape of a credit card. He also found a small eye-dropper for giving the plants some supplemental vitamins and filled it with a little liquid plant food. Max grabbed hold of where Betsy's arm was restrained to the chair and ran the corner of the plastic card like a knife across her forearm, a section about an inch or two long, pressing just enough to sting, but not actually breaking any skin. Then, he waited a couple seconds and used the eyedropper to trickle a little of the liquid over the line he'd drawn. Without her eyesight, she'd think she'd been cut and if her imagination got the best of her, the dripping of the plant food on her arm would feel like blood flowing out. Even though there was no damage, Max was counting on her mind playing tricks on her based on what she expected to have happen with someone who knew her brothers.

"Do I need to ask again, Lizzy?"

Betsy sighed and her shoulders that she'd been keeping back so proudly finally drooped. "No. I believe he has some sort of a job making furniture or customized woodworking or something like that. We really don't talk that much, you know. An occasional brief call around the holidays sometimes. I don't know where he lives other than just outside of DC. He doesn't tell me if he's kept up the business like he used to do with my older brother because he knows I would condemn him for that. That aspect of his life is not something I need to know about. It's actually better I know as little as possible. As far as I am aware, he's not married, doesn't have any children, and doesn't even like pets. I don't know what else I can tell you."

"Thank you, Lizzy. You've been very helpful." A moment later, she felt another little pinprick in her neck, just like earlier.

When she woke up again a little while later, Betsy was sitting at her desk in her office, all traces of her early evening visitor and his restraints having disappeared and her body was unharmed other than a slight tenderness in her neck where she'd been poked with a needle, twice. Less than two hours had passed since she looked at a clock before he appeared and she could almost convince herself the whole thing had just been a bad dream, but she knew better.

The stranger probably knew she wouldn't call the police. Not for anything that involved her brothers in some fashion. However, he hadn't asked about a phone number for her little brother and she debated whether or not to call him and warn him someone was looking for him or whether to let him deal with his own messes. She was inclined to the latter. She'd given up trying to clean up after his messes a long time ago and inserting herself now into his affairs could only result in bad things coming back to haunt her.

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 **A/N:** _Can you picture Max like this? Other comments?_


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer** : I own nothing _Bones_ related except my imagination. (12/5/15)

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It was early.

Too early to be this wide awake, but once Brennan's mind turned on for the day, there was no shutting it down until it had exercised a full days' worth of thoughts and cognitive functions to wear it out again. She'd always been like that – alert as soon as she woke up even though sometimes she still enjoyed lounging in bed and letting her body wake much slower than her mind. Especially when she could convince her husband to lounge with her . . . although "lounge" might not be the appropriate term when her morning wake-up routine included Booth.

Brennan turned on her side, facing Booth, and propped her head up on one elbow so she could admire him in his sleep, this man who meant the world to her. It was still dark outside and the room was cast in heavy shadows, but her eyes had adjusted to the dim illumination leeching in through the window shades from the ambient light outside and she could easily make out Booth's features as he lay sprawled on his back beside her, head turned her direction.

His face was relaxed with none of the frequent tension lines around his eyes or lips that were so readily apparent when he was awake allowing her to see clearly the permanent creases that had formed around his eyes and nasolabial folds. Time was just starting to leave its mark on his skin and she was sure the same would be said for her if she bothered to look closely in the mirror. Creams and lotions only did so much.

Booth had worry lines permanently etched gently into his forehead that hadn't been there when she first met him over a decade earlier. Thankfully, those worry lines were offset by the laughter lines, or crow's feet as they were sometimes called, that radiated out from the corners of his eyes. She liked seeing the crow's feet because they reassured her that no matter what life had thrown at them over the years, he'd still found enough reasons to laugh and smile that those lines had formed so prominently. Brennan liked the idea that she had contributed some to his laughter and those creases. That maybe she was at least in part responsible for putting those lines and wrinkles which reflected a happy life on his face. She sincerely hoped that forty years from now, she could wake up one morning and lay beside him, just like this, and study the lines and creases on his face again knowing they were there more from good times than bad and that she had contributed. Nature's evidence of a happy life together.

She saw his temporal vein twitch and when she looked back at his eyes, he had cracked one open halfway and was watching her, watching him. She felt the pull of a smile tugging the sides of her mouth. They'd had this conversation multiple times before and didn't need to repeat it with the actual words. If asked, he would tell her his highly honed sniper senses woke him up as he could _feel_ her eyes on him. She'd debate him about whether or not he could logically feel a look, simply because she could.

"What time is it?" he asked, his sleep roughened voice barely a whisper.

Brennan stretched her neck so she could see the clock beyond his shoulder and responded in a hushed tone to match his. "Not quite 5 o'clock."

Whether it was the dark room or the quiet stillness of the early morning, they both kept their voices soft and intimate.

"How come you're not sleeping?"

Brennan shrugged in response and, snuggling up to him, placed her free hand on top of his bare chest where she could lightly draw patterns with her fingertips as she spoke. "I woke up and I started thinking."

"Uuuuugggh," he groaned. "My mind doesn't work this early, Bones. Especially not without coffee."

"I know." She leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss on his shoulder blade before propping herself back up on her elbow. "I'll wait."

Booth closed his eyes again and they lay quietly like that for another ten to fifteen minutes or so. Brennan could tell by the cadence of his breathing that he was still awake and knew him well enough to be certain by now that he wasn't actually going to fall asleep again this morning, so she let the fingers of the hand that rested on his chest start to wander again. With just the tip of one finger, she started at the hollow of his throat, traced a line gently down his sternum, then circled around below his pectoral muscle, up the outside until she reached his collarbone again, then back towards his throat. She repeated the pattern on the opposite side of his chest as she began to speak, still keeping her voice low, watching the constant in motion of her finger drawing lazy 8s on his chest. "I used to lay awake at nights and worry that I couldn't foresee the future and what my feelings for you would be as time passed. I worried that my feelings would fade with time and I'd end up hurting you somehow once the novelty of a new relationship faded and the chemical endorphins weren't distorting my perceptions anymore."

"Bones –"

She interrupted him by placing her finger over his lips. "Shhhhh. I need to say this even if you don't want to hear it." She leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to the side of his mouth, next to her finger. "But, those thoughts don't worry me anymore, Booth." Her finger caressed his bottom lip, then slid down his throat so she could continue to draw patterns on his chest. "I know I love you. I've loved you for a decade now and the only thing that has changed about my feelings for you is that they've grown stronger and more all-encompassing with every day that passes. By the time I finally asked you to marry me a few years ago, I understood and accepted that I would love you for the rest of my life no matter what happens to us and I no longer worry about what my feelings for you may be down the line."

Booth reached up a hand, cupping her face and rubbing his thumb back and forth across her cheekbone. "I love you too, Bones. You've got to know that."

"I do." She let her fingers entwine with his against her face, then turned her head so she could place a lingering kiss in the palm of his hand. "But, in the last 24 months, I've watched an ambulance carry your bullet riddled body away from the ruins of our home not knowing whether you'd live or die. I've cried myself to sleep too many nights to count while you spent several months in jail uncertain whether you'd ever be released, if they didn't kill you first. I had to repeatedly answer Christine's questions about whether you'd ever come home and reassure her that we'd be okay, either way. I had to force you to move out when you put gambling ahead of being honest while you reconfirmed your priorities and I spent endless hours during that time wondering whether I was enough for you to fight for. And, then again, I had to confront the fact that when we found Jared's remains, I didn't know if I'd eventually find you dead or alive."

"Bones, baby, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"I'm not looking for apologies right now, Booth. Most of it was not your fault but, regardless, time and again in the last couple years I've had to confront the fact that my future might not include you in it and it had nothing to do with how much I love you or how much you love me. I've forced myself to picture a future without you in it, Booth . . . I've had to sometimes just to be able to get from one day to the next. Over the years that I've known you, you've taught me so much about love and the pleasures and benefits of sharing a life with someone that the prospect of spending the rest of my life alone seems to stretch forward as just empty and lonely and meaningless. I decided I would owe it to myself to try and live the rest of my life as wide as possible, to honor all that you taught me, even if that means learning to share it with someone new if you are eventually taken away from me."

"Jesus, Bones. Why are you even saying this bullshit? You know I don't like the thought of you with someone else. Ever. You're mine."

"I know. And, honestly? . . . . . I can't imagine someone else ever truly claiming even a fraction of what I've allowed my heart to feel for you so I don't know if it could ever happen, but I won't close myself off to the possibility. You, on the other hand though? I know you've loved other women before me, Booth and I believe, if you allowed yourself to, you could love another after me." She took a deep breath and stared right into his eyes so he'd feel the import of her words, finally arriving at the heart of her earlier thoughts. He started to tense up before she even began speaking. "If something happens to me . . ."

"No, Bones. No, just stop. Don't even go there."

". . . if this killer that's out there comes after me and is successful in his attempt to eliminate me . . ."

"No."

"I want you to know that I'd understand if you found someone else to share the rest of your life with."

"I'm not gonna let anything happen to you, Bones and there won't ever be someone else for me, okay?"

"It's not rational to assume you can always control everything, Booth. Whether it's this killer, or the next killer, or a car crash, or a poisonous snake in my suitcase, if something happens to me before we're old and gray, I need you to know that I want you to find happiness however you can. Christine and Hank deserve a father who won't stop living and enjoying his life simply because his partner died."

Booth sat up abruptly flipping Brennan onto her back as he loomed over her, caging her in between his arms. "You're not _just_ my partner, damn it. You're my wife, my world, my everything. Got it, Bones? End of discussion. We're gonna grow old together, and bounce our grandbabies on our knees someday, and complain to each other about arthritis in our joints or gas in our bowels and I don't give a fuck who this bastard is that we're chasing now or anyone who comes after him. You're gonna catch 'em and I'm gonna protect you while you do. That's just how it works. Now, shut up and kiss me like I'm the only man you ever want in your bed again because I'm about to remind you why it is that you love _me_ so much and why no one else will ever take _my_ place." With that, Booth slammed his lips down onto hers in a kiss that was pure possession, a claiming of what was his, and one that left no room for her to think about anything else other than him for the next hour.

* * *

Often times, when Brennan wanted to let her mind drift aimlessly, she'd hide away down in bone storage, the area all too frequently referred to by others as "limbo". When she walked into her office earlier that morning, she hadn't been ready to face another day pouring over the files on Mosley and the others, knowing they wouldn't say much of anything different than they said the day before or the day before that. To be perfectly blunt, her brain was still luxuriating in the memories of her morning acrobatics with Booth and she was reluctant to give up that pleasantly satisfied sexual haze just to be frustrated by the inevitable lack of progress on their current case, so she'd grabbed her lab coat and headed to limbo instead.

Limbo was intellectually and emotionally easy for her. There was no pressure or expectations regarding the results required from looking at a set of remains. She could rearticulate a skeleton and make notes about any indicators she identified with only half her concentration focused on the task at hand, letting her subconscious chew gently in the background on whatever other issues were percolating in her brain.

She was still in limbo when Angela tracked her down late morning.

"Hey, Sweetie. The day's already half over. What d'ya say we go grab some lunch together? There's that new soup and salad shop over on K Street that opened up a couple months ago that we've been meaning to try and it's a beautiful day outside for a short walk as long as you wear a coat."

Brennan glanced over at Angela, one eyebrow quirked up in suspicion. "Booth sent you down here to get me, didn't he?"

"What? No. Of course not." She tried to act nonchalant but sometimes she found it really difficult to deceive her best friend, especially if those cerulean blue eyes were locked on her like now and she'd been asked a direct question. "Well, I mean, he did send me a text saying he had a meeting that was going to last through lunch so he wouldn't be able to meet you himself. And, he's made it known to _everybody_ that he doesn't want you going anywhere alone with this killer out there that seems to have you in his sights. But, the soup and salad restaurant was totally _my_ idea. So, you comin?"

"MmHm." Brennan cast a skeptical look Angela's way, but decided to just go along with it. She was getting hungry and she knew she'd enjoy spending her lunch with Angela so she stripped off her latex gloves, tossing them in the trash, and headed for the door. "Let me change my coat."

As they entered Brennan's office, Angela was right on her heels, filling her in on Michael-Vincent's bath time escapade the night before where he'd smuggled in close to 20 tadpoles that he'd managed to capture down by the pond near their house because he thought they'd be fun to bathe with. Angela had almost had a heart attack when she scooped up a large cup of water from beneath the bath bubbles to pour over Michael-Vincent's head and saw little slimy black things swimming around. Needless to say, Jack had to finish giving their son his bath as Angela had been a little too freaked out and spent the rest of the evening on the couch with a wine bottle. Unfortunately, despite Jack's efforts to save them, the tadpoles were all deceased now as tadpoles and Mr. Bubbles in Batman Blue didn't mix well together.

"You just wait until Hank's older, Sweetie. If that little boy of yours is anywhere near as mischievous as I expect Booth was as a kid and has even half your brains, you're going to be in for a hell of a ride and I plan to laugh my ass off from the sidelines the whole time." Angela shook her head. "Boys. I'm just saying. Boys are sooo different than girls and Christine, who is always such a perfect princess, has spoiled you. I'm counting on Hank to balance the scales a bit."

Laughing at Angela's parenting plight, Brennan hung up her lab coat on her coat tree and grabbed her outdoor jacket, pulling it on, when she felt something unexpected in her pocket. She paused and pulled a small, 2-inch square dark blue box from her pocket that was wrapped in a simple red ribbon. It looked like a box you might get from a jeweler's shop for gifting a ring or earrings. _Booth_ , she thought warmly as she started to smile. "Is this why you lured me up here, Ange?"

Angela's brows went up as a smile broke out on her face. "Nope. Wasn't me or you'd be holding edible underwear and a bottle of strawberry massage oil instead of jewelry. So? What'd Studly get you?" She stepped up close to Brennan, watching as she opened the box to see what kind of treasure Special Agent Hotness had covertly snuck her friend, but the box had barely been opened when Brennan let go and dropped it to the ground.

Brennan stepped back a startled step and Angela, looking down at her feet, saw a small wooden figurine roll out of the box onto the carpet. An exquisitely hand carved figurine of a coiled snake, ready to strike. Both women stood frozen in place as the implications of what they were seeing sank in. Angela's eyes got huge. "Oh. My. God."

Once again, Brennan felt her heart beats accelerating and a shiver of fear slithered down her spine – a feeling that was becoming much too familiar these days. This wasn't a gift from Booth, of that she was sure. Grabbing a couple pens off her desk so she didn't touch the evidence any further, she squatted next to the box and poked it, turning it over until a small piece of paper fell out. Using the pens to pry it open, the note simply said "Back Off."

"We should get Dr. Hodgins to take a look at this." The softly spoken words had barely left Brennan's lips before Angela scooted around her, leaving as wide of a berth as possible, heading towards Brennan's office door. Brennan thought she was going to go find her husband, but there was no way Angela was going to leave her alone in there with that _thing_.

"Jaaacckkk!" She hollered her husband's name as loud as she could, causing every eye in the Jeffersonian to turn her direction before coming back into the room to stand by Brennan. She didn't know what to do, so simply rested her hand on Brennan's shoulder with a gentle squeeze, offering comfort the best way she knew how, through touch.

A moment later, Hodgins came ambling in, looking concerned by his wife's summons. "What's up, babe?"

Angela pointed to the 'gift' that was still at Brennan's feet while Brennan seemed to be lost in her own thoughts, staring absently towards the far side of her office.

Hodgins pulled a pair of gloves from his pockets and squatted down next to Brennan, picking up the box, the ribbon, and the note in one hand and the carving in the other before Brennan's eyes swiveled back to him and what he held.

She grabbed his hand and held it steady while she looked at the wooden snake, tilting Jack's hand this way and that since she couldn't touch the carving herself without her own gloves on. "The craftsmanship that went into carving this is quite remarkable, don't you think?"

"Yeah. It's pretty amazing."

"The artisan must be someone used to working with wood, someone who understands how to work with the grain of the material and not fight it. Look at the minute detail he added around the snake's head."

Jack looked where she pointed with her pen, his hand still grasped in hers. "He's obviously very skilled. Listen, Dr. B-"

"It's basswood, isn't it?"

Hodgins studied the figurine for just a moment, then nodded. "Yes."

"Just like my other anonymous carving." She pointed her chin towards the box on her shelf that held her Hillary token. The one her father had found so unsettling.

Hodgins took a deep breath, not liking where this was heading, but unable to deny it. "Yeah. Basswood. Tilia Americana."

"Also known as a linden tree, right?"

"Yeah. Just like the source of our drupe."

* * *

 **A/N:** _Did you like that? I'd love to hear your thoughts._


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** _I'm behind on everything in my life this week – so just a short update. Had planned to do more, but the rest will have to wait until the weekend._

* * *

 **Disclaimer** : I own nothing _Bones_ related except my imagination. (12/10/15)

* * *

Max yawned. One of those big, wide-opened, mouth stretching yawns that brought tears to his eyes in its wake.

It had been after midnight when he returned from Ohio yesterday and at his age, he needed to maintain his regular sleep schedule or his whole system would get out of whack. Like now.

It was early afternoon and he was still sitting around in his boxers and undershirt with just a tattered old cotton robe thrown over top as he nibbled on some cheese and crackers while pouring through the white pages and different online sites trying to identify all the furniture making shops or custom wood carving stores in the area. Betsy had said she thought her brother held some sort of job as a craftsman somewhere like that and Max was determined to find him.

The sudden ringing of his phone startled him from his concentration, but a quick glance told him it was just Tempe. She and Booth probably had a break in their case and needed him to watch their little angels tonight. At least he hoped so. He loved getting to spend so much time with his grandkids.

"Hey, Tempe," he answered, his easy-going smile echoing in his voice. "How's everything going?"

 _Hello, Max. Booth and I would like to request that you join us for dinner tonight. We need to discuss some recent events with you._

Uh oh. She called him Max. Not Dad. And he thought the invitation sounded more like a formal summons to the palace than a friendly invite. Surely there was no way that son-in-law of his found out about what transpired on his latest trip to Ohio already. He'd only been back half a day. He knew Booth was good, but seriously? Maybe it would be best if he evaded them for a bit, he thought to himself.

"Oh, uh, I'm not sure if I can make it tonight, sweetheart. How about next week sometime?"

There was a pause on the other end, then he heard her expel a big sigh. _If you already have an evening engagement and can't make it in time for dinner, then please stop by afterwards. Otherwise, you're likely to be having your next conversation with Booth down at FBI headquarters in the interrogation room at a time that's most convenient to him._

Damn. That didn't sound good at all.

"What time should I be there for dinner?"

 _7:00._

"I'll bring dessert."

* * *

True to his word, Max showed up just a little before Brennan's 7:00 deadline carrying a blueberry pie, vanilla ice cream, and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon that he knew his daughter liked to drink. He was still trying to figure out how exactly he'd gotten in trouble with his daughter, but was opting to take comfort in the fact that at least she still seemed to be willing to talk to him. She wasn't shutting him out like she'd done several times before, at least, not yet.

As Brennan poured herself a glass of wine, Booth brought Max a tumbler of scotch and told Max they had some things to discuss with him, but not until after dinner, when the kids were asleep. Max certainly wasn't going to balk about the reprieve so he sipped his drink and just enjoyed listening to the typical back-and-forth banter between Tempe and Booth as they prepared dinner.

Surprisingly, Max found dinner to be very pleasant with no hint of the issue on Tempe's mind interfering with the meal. Booth had made a cheese ravioli dish and garlic bread while Brennan had prepared a salad to go with it. Nothing fancy, but it tasted delicious and the conversation around the table had been lively and fun, much of it focused around Christine's upcoming activities. After dinner, Brennan asked Max to help read to Christine and get her ready for bedtime while she took care of Hank and Booth cleaned the kitchen. It was so normal, that Max was almost able to forget the summons that had brought him over to their house in the first place.

Before he knew it, he was placing a kiss on Christine's sleeping forehead and heading out to deal with whatever Tempe and Booth wanted to discuss.

Booth handed Max a fresh drink and sat down on the couch next to his wife, opposite from Max's chair. Max watched as without conscious thought, they both reached for the other's hand and automatically entwined their fingers together. They probably didn't realize how much of a unified front they presented sitting side-by-side like that for the upcoming discussion, which at this point Max just wanted to get over with, not caring for the anticipation of the unknown.

Booth looked at Brennan and when she gave him a barely visible nod of her head, he began. "Max, Bones and I think you have some information that may be relevant to our current case and we need you to answer some questions for us."

That wasn't the direction Max had expected the conversation to go and he didn't even try to hide his surprise. "Really? You mean the dead guy you found in the woods a couple weeks ago?" He shook his head. "I had nothing to do with that, Booth. I promise."

"We don't think you killed him, Dad. But, we think the man who did kill Deon Mosley, the person from the woods, also killed a number of other people and now, we think he's become a danger to me and my family."

Max sat up sharply at that and focused his gaze on his daughter with an intensity that was uncommon relative to his normal, laid-back manner around her. "What do you mean?"

"We've collected some evidence that leads us to believe that the killer we are looking for is the same person who put the snakes in my car the other day. While our evidence is circumstantial, it's enough for us to also conclude that this killer is the same person who sent me that wooden ice-axe carving you were so interested in when you last came to my office." Max felt his mouth go dry and took a deep breath as he began to comprehend what his daughter was wanting to know. "Dad, I need you to tell me why you reacted that way to that artifact and everything you know about it or what it means."

"I'm not sure what you think I know or what you think I can tell you, Tempe." Max stalled.

"Dad, somehow, this case that we're working on is connected to the person that gave me that Hillary token and I believe something about that item is connected to you and your past. Now, that person is threatening my family. _Your_ grandkids. I know you don't want to tell me about any part of your past life. You've made that very clear over the years since you came back. But we need to know. You're holding something back and Booth and I need to know everything that you can tell us about this man and we need to know it now. Tonight. Before he does something else."

Max stood up and walked over to the window, looking outward, but not really seeing what was on the other side of the glass. His gaze was focused inwards as he thought back to a period in his life that he'd spent most days of the last few decades trying to forget.

There had always been two, well three if he was honest, reasons why he clung so religiously to his silence about that era of his life. The least noble of the three reasons was simple pride. Max did what he had to do to survive and he was always able to operate within a certain code of behavior which allowed him to make peace with his actions and still sleep at night. But that didn't mean he was proud of everything in his past and he simply didn't want his precious daughter, Tempe, to know things about him that would make him appear to be less in her eyes. She had suspicions based on bits and pieces she'd dug up over the years, but that wasn't the same as truly knowing.

The most obvious reason to keep quiet about his past was that silence was the best way to assure he stayed out of jail. Personal feelings aside, Booth was FBI and if he knew everything about Max's past, he'd either have to arrest Max again or he'd become an accessory to the crimes after the fact, simply by merit of undisclosed knowledge. Max didn't ever want to put Booth or Tempe in the position of having to choose between his freedom and their own sense of right and wrong.

But even the prospect of jail time wasn't the primary reason to remain silent. He'd accepted several years earlier that he'd serve his time if need be in order to make restitution with Tempe.

No. The primary reason he'd been so diligent about keeping his mouth shut was fear. For his kids. Tempe and Russ. Pure and simple.

In the early days, he'd feared the men that were part of the strong arm crew he and Ruthie got tangled up with. They wanted Max and Ruth to keep stealing on their behalf and had proven they wouldn't hesitate to use the kids to coerce Max and Ruth into doing their will.

Later, when he thought it was safe to come out of hiding since most of the crew were either dead or too old to care about him anymore, he quickly learned to fear the corrupt network of individuals hiding behind their masks of respectable civic servants. Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the strong arm crew was still in operation, they'd wisely used a portion of their spoils to pay off FBI agents, state police, Secret Service, ATF, and who knew how many others. Back then, Max knew that there was a very elaborate network of corrupt law enforcement and political figures that the strong arm crew was in bed with, but he didn't know names or how deep it went. When he came out of hiding almost a decade ago and Russ's life was threatened by FBI agents Delaney and Kirby, Max realized the individuals of the strong arm crew weren't the only threat to his family. The network of corruption was just as big of a threat and still vitally alive. So, Max kept his head down and his mouth shut and tried to stay off their radar.

It wasn't until last year, when Tempe and Booth exposed Durant and his entire chain of minions, effectively cutting the head off the viper that had kept him immobilized, that Max finally felt he could stop looking over his shoulder. This last year, he'd been able to relax and live without the specter of fear looming over his shoulder for the first time in decades.

Now, he and the man known as 'Hillary' were the only two left from before that he knew about and Max had no desire to go back to living with fear as a constant companion.

He turned and faced his daughter and son-in-law. "I'll tell you everything I know and answer any questions you may have."

Brennan squeezed her husband's hand. Her whole life she'd been searching for answers to questions about her parents. Now, finally, her dad was agreeing to open the book and share at least part of that story with her freely and all of a sudden, she was terrified of what she might hear and what it might mean.

What if what she heard was awful? Would she still be able to accept her father in her life and around her children if she learned he'd truly done some awful things?

What if what she heard _wasn't_ awful? Would she be able to accept that her parents had abandoned her or that her father kept secrets from her for decades if what he had to confess really wasn't that bad?

Brennan loved her father and, in her own way, even trusted him when it came to important things. His refusal to disclose the events of his past was still a constant source of friction between them, but it had become almost a comfortable friction, one they both understood and accepted and which existed these days more out of habit than any real concern over how his past would impact their present.

For the first time since her parents drove away when she was fifteen years old, she wasn't certain she wanted to know the reasons behind their actions and that realization made her feel confused and disoriented.

Booth knew his wife well enough to have a sense as to what she was feeling. "Max? Come sit back down with us and I'll freshen our drinks before we start."

Max nodded in agreement. "Yeah. This may take a while so we should get comfortable."

Booth went to the bar and grabbed a full bottle of scotch and an extra tumbler for Brennan. Sitting down next to his wife, he poured them all a healthy dose to drink. "Here you go, Bones," he said as he handed her a partially full glass. He wasn't surprised, but was still slightly amused, when she took a rather large gulp and barely flinched at the burn she must've felt.

"All right, Max," Booth began. "Tell us what you know."

* * *

 **A/N:** _OK – just have to ask. Did you yawn at the opening scene with Max? I think I did *every time* I read those first couple sentences as I was writing/editing this, which means a bunch. How'd you like this chapter and our first real glimpse into Max's thoughts on his past otherwise? Next chapter probably won't be ready until Sunday this weekend._


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer** : I own nothing _Bones_ related except my imagination. (12/13/15)

* * *

" _All right, Max," Booth began. "Tell us what you know."_

Max studied Booth and his daughter for another moment while he tried to gather his thoughts and decide where to begin. Finally, he leaned forward in his chair, elbows resting on his knees and hands linked loosely together. "I'm agreeing to tell you what I know and answer any questions you have as best as I can, but, since this is related to a specific case you're working on, do you think maybe you could call that ball-busting Cajun lawyer lady your such good buddies with and see if there's any way she can grant me immunity for what I'm about to say to you? I'll talk with you either way, but it may make things easier."

"Yeah, you know what, that's a really great idea, Max. Just give me a minute and I'll be right back." Booth grabbed his phone and stepped out of the room so he could call Caroline Julian in private. If Max was granted immunity for whatever he told them, then Booth wouldn't be caught between his obligations to the law and his obligations to his family. Max would be allowed to speak freely without concern that something he said would land him in handcuffs.

Luckily, Caroline was quick to agree. After all, the statute of limitations for being able to prosecute most any of the crimes that Max may have committed in his younger days would have expired for everything except crimes related to murder and in Caroline's view, if Max had killed anyone several decades earlier, they probably deserved it.

Booth returned and confirmed the deal he'd made with Caroline so nothing that Max disclosed would be able to be used against him.

Max looked to Tempe as he began his story. "I know you are both aware that in the mid-to-late 70s, your mother and I got caught up in working with a strong-arm crew of bank robbers based out of Ohio. In addition to Ruthie and I, there were about a dozen or so other members of the organization and they were not a group of fellows you wanted to have pissed off at you. They were mean. They were violent. And they didn't take kindly to anyone who they thought they couldn't trust to protect the interests of the group."

"Why did you and mom ever get involved with such an organization to begin with?" Brennan asked.

Max sighed. "Why did you help me escape from that airplane hangar where we rescued Booth from that thug years ago by giving me your car keys when you knew I was wanted by the FBI? Why did you get Booth's brother to deliver a body to you at the lab once which you knew you weren't supposed to have access to? Why did you run from the law when you were suspected of killing your friend, the crazy mathematician? How did Booth finally get out of prison last year? Sometimes Tempe, we do things even if we know they're not completely legal or right because we're compelled by some other force or reason. Something that's even stronger than the law alone. You have to know this as you've done it too, breaking the rules that you felt weren't right at the time. The story of how your mother and I ended up with that gang is a story for another day, but I'll tell it to you sometime if you want to hear it. I'm done with secrets between us."

"I'd like to know, Dad."

Max nodded his head. "Okay. Another time then. Getting back to where I was going, the leader of the strong-arm crew was a man named Marvin Barlow. You may recall I went to Ohio last year to retrieve a ring he had stolen from you when you were a little girl."

"Yes. I remember. You almost got arrested again for digging up his grave."

"Right. Well, Marvin had a younger brother named Jason and a younger sister named Lizzy. Jason was still basically just a kid. He was high school age, but he didn't want to be treated like a youngster and would do anything he could think of to try and impress his big brother or fit in with his brother's group of friends. Marvin and a couple of the others, like Simon Holt and Mac Corbin, started thinking it was fun to play with Jason and see how far they could push him. Before long, they had him doing all sorts of illegal shenanigans, just for sport. Eventually, they started sending him on errands with Vince McVicar. Vince was Marvin's hired gun, so to speak." Max took a sip of his drink, his thoughts turned inward. "Pairing him with McVicar meant Jason was introduced to cold-blooded murder before he even graduated from high school.

Ruth and I hated what we saw happening to this kid. He was a young, impressionable man, and he had almost a dozen violent, hard core criminals all working on ways to corrupt him, just for fun. Ruth tried to temper all the ugliness he was being shown. She'd talk to him about books and music and anything she could think of to try and remind him that not all parts of life were so mean and ugly. She discovered he had taken a wood shop class in school and liked the woodworking, so she encouraged that as a hobby for him and he started bringing her little trinkets or carvings he made at the school. Ruth always praised his work."

"So, when you saw that wooden carving in my office it made you think of Jason Barlow? Lots of people do woodworking as a hobby though, so that seems like a pretty big leap."

"Yeah, but it wasn't just that you had _a_ carving, it was that specific carving. Shortly before your mother and I abandoned that group of thugs, Jason made a very similar carving to what was in your office and gifted it to your mother. I don't remember the exact words he said to her at the time, but she came to me afterwards and she was scared. He'd developed an inappropriate affection for her and had alluded to the possibility that they could be together romantically if she didn't already have a husband and kids. He told her he'd take care of her. We'd been making plans for a while to try and escape that group, but after those comments we pushed our timetable forward. Marvin had a job set up in Dayton, Ohio a couple weeks later and we made plans to disappear right after that. Marvin always had everyone lay low for a bit right after a job, so we figured we could get at least a couple days head start on getting away before they realized we were gone. The clincher for me with respect to the item in your office though was the $5 bill with Hillary on it. Everyone in our organization had a nickname from an explorer that we could use like a code name when we were on a job. I was Columbus, your mother was Fremont, and Jason was Hillary."

"Why couldn't you tell me any of this the other day when you saw my anonymous gift?"

Max could see the frustration she felt written on her face. "I was surprised . . . caught off guard you could say. I suppose that's part of it. I didn't want it to be true, that Jason had somehow found you and fixated on you in some manner." Max paused as he thought back to that day in her office. "I wanted to confirm it for myself first and find him, so I could discover his intentions towards you." They all understood without Max saying the words out loud that Max would've done what he needed to do to stop Jason from potentially hurting Brennan if he'd found him.

"So," Booth asked, drawing Max's attention towards him for the first time since he started his story. "Have you found him or your confirmation?"

"I went and visited his sister, Lizzy, who's still living in Ohio. I confirmed that he's here, in town, but she didn't have his address and didn't know exactly how to find him. I've also got a few feelers out there with some folks I know who keep their ears to the ground on these types of matters."

"I'm gonna need to know how to find his sister, Max, so the FBI can talk to her ourselves. What else did she tell you?"

"She said she thought he had some sort of job requiring either woodworking or furniture craftsmanship skills. I've been putting together a list of places in the area that I thought might meet her description and was going to start checking them out. I'm sure he's using a different name now and I haven't seen him in over thirty years, since he was still just a kid, so I'm not sure what he looks like these days. All in all, knowing it's Jason doesn't really help. Finding him is still pretty much like looking for a needle in a haystack."

"OK, Max. This is my case now and the FBI will handle things from here on out. Get your list of places to Angela so she can plug it into the Angelatron. I'm sure she'll be able to find some others once she knows the parameters you've been using to select potential locations he could be. After that, you need to back off and let us do our jobs."

Max shook his head. "I'll give my list to Angela, but I can't walk away from this Booth."

"Max –"

"Sorry, son. I'll stay out of your way and, if I learn anything useful, I'll pass it along. But I can't just sit back and do nothing if Jason might be coming after Tempe or my grandkids."

Booth and Max both glared at each other in a stalemate, neither one willing to give in. Brennan rolled her eyes at the blatant display of masculine testosterone and redirected the discussion.

"Dad, I've been trying to understand the timing on this thing. The case that Booth and I are investigating in which Jason is a suspect in didn't show up on our door until a couple weeks ago, yet he sent me that wood carving a couple months ago, shortly after I returned to work. Do you have any thoughts about that? About why he would have found me or singled me out or whatever it is he was doing before we started investigating the murder of Deon Mosley?"

Max nodded his head. "I've been trying to figure out why he would send you that gift for the last couple of days, but it didn't start to make sense to me until tonight, when you told me you thought he was your killer. Now, I have the start of a theory. Jason's brother, Marvin, had a number of connections with the FBI, State Police, Secret Service, ATF, and so on. Back when Ruthie and I were mixed up with him, he knew some bad eggs in each of those organizations and was quick to share some of the spoils we got from every heist with them. He'd regularly pay out bribes so that evidence would disappear or he'd be tipped off if they were coming for him or just to gather information he needed. You name it. He also performed some jobs off the books for some of those agencies. Looking back on everything with what I know now, my guess is that Marvin was somehow working with Glen Durant's father, Desmond Wilson. When Wilson passed the reigns of his organization down to his stepson, Durant, Marvin would've been working directly with Durant. I imagine with Marvin's death a little over a decade ago, his brother Jason became Durant's 'go-to' guy for the same types of services. After all, everyone else from that original strong-arm crew was either in jail or dead by then. When you and Booth brought Durant down a little over a year ago, you probably came to Jason's attention. My guess is you worried him enough that he took out anyone from Durant's network that he had worked with before they could implicate him in anything and your Mr. Mosley was one of those folks."

"So, Jason found Bones because she took down Durant and Bones found Jason because he tried to hide the evidence of his involvement with Durant, primarily by killing other people and giving her some bodies to work with." Booth shook his head. "What a mess this is."

"Yeah," Max snorted. "You can say that again."

"I'll get Aubrey to start digging up any information the FBI can find on this Jason Barlow fellow tomorrow morning. Maybe we'll get lucky and get a hit on where he is pretty quickly. You've been a big help, Max. Thanks."

It was late, so Max stood up, getting ready to take his leave for the night. "Jason's a bad dude, Booth. He needs taking care of."

Booth reached out to shake Max's hand and clap him comfortingly on the shoulder. "I know, Max, and I'm gonna take care of him. No one gets away with threatening my family." A silent communication passed between the two men, both understanding and acknowledging that as alpha males, it was their role and responsibility to protect their loved ones from the predators like Jason. They'd each do what was necessary.

As Max left the house, Brennan turned and wrapped her arms around Booth's waist. She just wanted to be held for a bit. "In some ways, it feels like we made a major breakthrough on this case, now that we have a name, but in other ways, it feels like we still haven't made much headway at all. We don't know what name Jason is currently using, where he lives or works, or what he looks like. There's still a lot to discover."

Booth pulled her tighter to his chest and kissed her brow. "We'll get him, Bones. I promise you that. We'll get him."

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 **A/N:** _Between end of year work stuff and family stuff for the holidays, I'm falling behind on lots of things, including my writing. Will do my best, but may not be able to maintain my schedule for the next week or so. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed or left me comments on this story so far. I appreciate it._

 _Hope you enjoyed this latest chapter. Comments?_


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** _A special thanks to GalaxieGurl for previewing a portion of this chapter that I questioned and offering her comments._

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 **Disclaimer** : I own nothing _Bones_ related except my imagination. (12/17/15)

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Brennan dropped her pen onto her desk with a frustrated frown. She canted her head towards the entrance to her office at the young man who had been hovering and pacing outside her door for at least the last half hour, disrupting her concentration. As she watched from the corner of her eye, she saw him approach her door with his arm lifted like he was about to knock, then pause, hand suspended in mid-air for a moment before dropping his arm back to his side and stepping away. He walked about ten feet away, stopped as he shifted his weight from one foot to the next, then turned back towards her office repeating the same routine yet again. The only real variation between one cycle and the next seemed to be how long he would pause before changing his mind one way or the other.

Brennan pushed her chair away from her desk to stand, tired and out of patience with whatever ridiculousness was going on. When she got to her doorway, he was standing several feet away, his back to her as he wrestled with his conundrum.

"Did you have something you wished to discuss with me, Mr. Stahr?" Brennan sharply challenged the young intern causing him to jump and turn to face her.

"Yes." It wasn't entirely clear whether his response was an answer to her question or simply a reflexive response to his name being called, especially when he just continued to stand there, staring at Brennan and not contributing anything additional to the discussion. Every few seconds he'd swallow, lick his lips, or start to open his mouth, but no more words were forthcoming.

Brennan crossed her arms and glared at him irately, her displeasure quite evident by the expression on her face. "I'm sorry Mr. Stahr. I have never found mental telepathy to be a reliable method of communication. If you have something specific that you wish to discuss with me, I'm going to require you to actually speak the words and not just stare at me."

Jessie nodded his head and cleared his throat. "I, uh . . . I . . . you know what? Never mind. I'm sorry to disturb you Dr. Brennan."

Brennan took in his pale face, the accelerated beating of his heart visible at the pulse in his neck, his clenched fists, and the fact that he couldn't hold eye contact for more than a brief second and knew the young man was terrified to speak to her. She never comprehended such nonsense. Generally, she had no patience and no tolerance for people who weren't even willing to vocalize their thoughts or concerns when they had something to say. It was irrational and resolved nothing to be silent if one had something specific to state and her first inclination was to simply dismiss the young man and return to her desk and her own work. But, for better or worse, she thought of the late Dr. Sweets in that exact moment and instinctively knew he'd be disappointed in her if she simply turned and walked away. She could almost hear his voice in her mind. _Look at the boy, Dr. Brennan. Really look at him. He clearly has something he wants to discuss with you and your unfriendly demeanor is scaring him too badly. Would it really hurt to try to be nice and give him just a few minutes of your time? He doesn't know the real you or what to expect and it's up to you to give him the comfort and assurance which will allow him to open up and share with you what's on his mind. You can help him if you just give it a try._

She exhaled a resigned sigh, letting her frustration and annoyance flow from her body, and rubbed her forehead with one hand as Jessie started to turn away. "Mr. Stahr, please. Won't you come into my office and sit down for a bit? Something is obviously on your mind and if you think I can be of assistance to you, I'd like to try." She tried to modulate her voice like she would if she was talking to one of Christine's playmates and asking to see a special picture they made. While she wasn't completely successful in projecting the warm and reassuring tone she was striving for, it was enough for Jessie to reconsider (again) and follow through with his original intent to talk to her.

Walking back into her office, Brennan longingly eyed the chair behind her desk but opted to sit in one of the seats that faced the couch, hoping that the less formal seating arrangement would help Mr. Stahr feel more relaxed and willing to talk.

For his part, Jessie sat down on the couch, but was perched on the very edge, ready to jump up and run away at a moment's notice if he needed to. More silence followed as he looked at Dr. Brennan and gathered his courage.

"How can I be of assistance to you, Mr. Stahr?" Brennan finally prompted, gently, when the silence started to get a little too long to be comfortable.

"I did it."

Brennan shook her head in confusion at the words he blurted out. "I don't know what that means. Should I be congratulating you for some accomplishment or reprimanding you for some misbehavior? You need to clarify. What precisely did you do?"

Jessie wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and looked down towards her feet. "I'm the one who put the little box you found in your coat pocket there the other day."

Brennan's eyebrows shot up in surprise and she sat up straighter, leaning forward and propping her elbows on her knees. " _You_ made the carving?" Jessie certainly wasn't old enough to be the man her father mentioned to her which would throw a lot of their suppositions about the case out the window.

"No." Jessie shook his head. A quick glance at Dr. Brennan let him know he had her full and undivided attention now, but he couldn't hold her eyes and quickly looked away again. "No, I didn't even know what was in the box. I was just told to put it in your coat pocket when you were out of the office. But, when I saw all the commotion that followed after you discovered it, I realized perhaps it might've been something bad."

"You are correct, Mr. Stahr. It was something bad. That box contained a small, wood crafted figurine which was intended as a direct threat against me and my family and has now become an important piece of evidence in one of the investigations I am currently pursuing with the FBI." She could tell that he was shaken by her answer. "I've no doubt Special Agent Booth will want to question you about your involvement with our case and you should probably expect to spend the next several hours after leaving my office being questioned at the FBI headquarters. I don't think I'll be able to prevent that. Who gave you the box and the instructions to deliver it to me?"

"He said his name was Hillary. That's all. I'm not sure if that's his first name or last name. Just Hillary." Now that his confession was out in the open, Jessie felt a lot more relieved. He was still anxious about what was going to happen to him or whether he'd lose his job at the Jeffersonian which he needed so badly, but he'd never really liked feeling that he was spying on Dr. Brennan for someone else. Admitting to his part had lifted a burden that was heavier than he realized. Jessie finally relaxed against the couch back after answering.

"Why did you do what he asked? Was this the first time you'd dealt with him?"

"No. He asked me to leave another small box for you on your desk a few months ago, but there never seemed to be any harm that came out of that one so I wasn't too concerned and didn't think much about it when he asked again." Brennan knew the first gift he spoke of was in reference to her Hillary token, the wood carved ice-axe.

"So, he's approached you twice now?" she asked.

Jessie realized he was going to have to come clean about everything. He sighed, closed his eyes, and leaned his head back on the couch. "No. He's approached me a bunch of times now. I haven't kept count. The first time was a pretty long time ago, before you quit for several months. It seemed harmless at first. He started chatting with me one morning waiting in line for coffee and just asked generic questions about where I worked and what I did. He paid for my coffee and muffin to say thanks for talking to him. I bumped into him a handful of times over the next couple months and he was always asking me questions about work. I don't even remember when I finally realized that we always ended up talking about you even though I told him a few times that I really didn't know you that well since I don't work for you."

"Did he ever approach you during the time between when I quit working and started back again?"

Jessie thought back, trying to remember. "I don't believe so. He was more direct though after you came back. I knew right away when I saw him each time that he was going to ask about you and he hardly ever asked about other things anymore. I figured he was probably just a really gung-ho member of your fan base. You know, a Brennanite. Plus . . . he started slipping me a few dollars here or there. He said he knew how hard it was paying for college and just wanted to show his appreciation by helping out a bit. The money was nice and I wasn't really telling him anything that I didn't think he could easily find out some other way."

Brennan frowned at hearing that. She knew how a good lawyer could spin that to create some real difficulties for Mr. Stahr. "Do you know how to contact him?"

"No. He always finds me." Jessie finally dug up the courage to look back at her face. She looked thoughtful, but surprisingly, he didn't see any anger or accusation in her eyes and he felt the knot in his gut loosen just a little bit more. His conviction that coming to see her and tell her what he knew grew stonger.

"Did this man, Hillary, ever mention anything to you about where he worked? Where he lived? Friends, family, or hobbies? Anything like that? Anything that would help us locate him?"

"To be honest, I always got a kinda scary vibe from the dude and I never asked him too many questions. I wasn't all that interested in becoming best friends, you know? If he mentioned any of those things to me, I didn't pay much attention and I've forgotten."

"OK. Well, if nothing else Mr. Stahr, you can be very helpful to us by giving us a physical description of the man. I'd like you to sit with Mrs. Montenegro and help her develop a sketch of the person you've been talking to. You can convey to her any other physical characteristics you've noticed as well, such as height, approximate weight, any unique scars, tattoos or other identifying markers like that. If you see this man again in the future, I would caution you to avoid being alone with him and to contact the FBI as soon as possible."

Jessie agreed, offering to do whatever he could to help. Brennan walked him over to Angela's office so she could explain to her friend what it was she was looking for. She stood on the sidelines for a few moments and listened as Angela asked Mr. Stahr some general questions about the suspect's physical description. When they started getting into the more detailed nuances, she returned to her own office and called her husband.

"Booth? I think we caught a break. Angela should be sending you a sketch of our suspect shortly."

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Jason Barlow sat in front of the computer monitor, one hand inside the open fly of his pants, and flipped back and forth between three photos that he had selected as his favorites from the day he captured Temperance Brennan's facial expressions with his telephoto lens while her husband brought her to climax in the park following their picnic. In his mind, he labelled them his before, during, and after pictures.

In the first photo, Temperance's eyes were closed and her head rested on Booth's shoulder. To a casual observer, she seemed like she could be napping. Her lips were only slightly parted and he could just barely see the tip of her tongue against her lower lip. She looked relaxed and worry free, but a closer examination of the tension around her eyes and she appeared concentrated on whatever her husband was doing to her under that blanket. Booth was whispering in her ear and as Jason stroked himself, he wondered at the words Booth may have uttered. Was he simply professing his love for her? Or was he telling her in graphic detail things he wanted to do to her body? He wondered whether sexually explicit talk turned her on as he imagined the types of things Booth might be saying, the types of things he would say if he were in Booth's position.

In the second photo, her eyes were still closed, but her head was thrown back further against her husband's shoulder as her back subtly arched upward. Her brow was furrowed. Her chin was thrust forward, and tension was evident in her neck muscles. Jason gripped himself more firmly as he studied her. Temperance's mouth was a little further open and he could almost feel the breath panting from her lips as he imagined the mewling noises she probably made in the back of her throat that couldn't be fully restrained, despite their public setting. The blanket had slipped down a bit below her chest and while her upper body was still fully covered by her sweater, Jason would bet money that the shape he could see beneath her sweater was from her husband's arm, one hand grasping a breast beneath her clothing. Booth's eyes were fastened on her face and his expression clearly reflected his love, his pride, and his pleasure at watching her find ecstasy.

The final picture was shortly after their intimate escapade was over. Her eyes were open again but only about 3/4 of the way. Her head rested peacefully on Booth's shoulder once more, and she wore a satisfied if somewhat devious smile. The rosy flush to her cheeks and the sexy tilt to her lips made her look like a vibrantly alive woman who had more carnal thoughts on her mind. It was in looking at this final photo and imagining himself holding her while she contemplated wicked retribution, his fingers coated with her slick dew, that Jason found his own release.

He reached up and ran a finger from his free hand across the image of her face, like a caress. For the first time in a long time, years probably, he was actually reluctant to consider the need to dispose of someone.

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 **A/N:** _Hope you enjoyed that. Comments are always welcome._


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